Premature kitten not eating solids

Question
I have a 5 month old kitten who is still nursing. The issue is he does not want any cat food that I present to him. I am supplementinng her milk with second step as he was starting to lose weight. He is now consistently gaining weight but is still small. He is 3.8 pounds and he was born 12/16/09. I should say that he was born under grave circumstances. I volunteer at a cat clinic where we do low cost/feral TNR. His mom was preganant and she was a spay/abort. However he lived, his 2 siblings did not. I took him and the mom home. Otherwise he seems to be a "normal" kitten..playing, pooping, peeing, using the litterbox...But wants no solid food. I have tried real chicken, lunchmeat, baby food, mixing KMR with moist food and he is not interested. The only other foods that he likes (and this was only because my daughter was eating them and he was on her lap) are hard pretzels, chicken nuggets and doritos....do you have any suggestions as to what I should do or what his issue is? Vet says that he is more than likely developmentally delayed due to his birth circumstance and at the very least a premature birth...anoxic? He was healthy enough to be neutered. He did well with the surgery and has no issues from that....but will not eat. I have no idea what else to do

Answer
Hi Lorrie,

Wow, that is an unfortunate situation and not one I am too familiar with.  I have never had issues weaning my fosters off of milk onto wet and dry food.  The first thing I would say is stop feeding people food, period.  Pretzels, nuggets, and doritos and going to do NOTHING for him nutritionally, in fact will mess up his system further and does little to help him transition to normal food.  I teach all of my cats and fosters to respect people food--they are not to approach it or be near it when I or anyone else is eating.  They never get it, and this way they learn it is nothing novel or to be interested about.

Now granted, more than likely he is having trouble due to his unique situation.  My concern would be that if the problem is in fact that he was so premature, he may never develop a normal appetite, and thereby will not be able to effectively achieve optimum nutrition.  Not only that, but I am sure he will never have the healthy immune or digestive system that a normal term kitten will.  Some are more fragile than others, and I make this point due to my personal experience.  Long story short, my oldest cat Indy who is now 7 years old, was a normal pregnancy from a not-so-healthy cat.  But she was developmentally normal.  I rescued her at 5 weeks old when her mother's 'owner' could not afford to feed them and was not cleaning the litter box.  She had a normal kittenhood, but then when she was about 3 years old, she almost died from a severe bacterial infection caused by my irresponsible roommate leaving some meat out that went bad that she ate.  She has never been the same since.  She never had hairballs her whole life, and after that, even though my cats are on the best holistic food (Halo), get combed daily and receive a supplement, she has almost weekly hairballs.  Her body does not absorb nutrients in the same way, she has a sensitive stomach, and she does not deposit fat the same anymore.  She used to weigh 9.5 pounds, and now I can't get her over 8.6 pounds.  If she hasn't eaten with the last 6 hours, I have to only give her a few pieces and then the normal portion about 20 minutes later or she will throw it all up.

My point here is one that you probably don't want to hear but you need to know.  You need to entertain the possibility that he may not and probably never will change.  This is not a developmentally delayed issue--there was no malnutrition here.  He was short-changed the proper development in his mother's womb, and no amount of time is going to correct that.  Unfortunately vets are not in the business of telling you the truth or what is best for the animal, but in exploring how many different avenues they can take you down to get the most money out of you.  

In the best interest of the cat, I would recommend two things.  First, find the nearest HOLISTIC vet clinic and set him up with an appointment there to get their opinion.  Second, he needs to be separated from his mother immediately, in the same way proper weaning is done at 8 weeks old.  He is little motivated to try solid food when he still has access to the milk.  It's basic logic.  This is how some mother's wind up with 4 year olds who still breast feed--it's so important developmentally and psychologically to wean at the proper time.

The next step is to try HALO wet food.  If he takes to that, you can try the dry food later.  Let me tell you the process I use for my fosters and see if this works for you.  I actually have not had to mix the KMR with the wet food to get them to eat it.  I normally start introducing about a tablespoon of wet food at a normal feeding time while I am still bottle feeding.  So in place of the time period I would give a bottle, I set out a saucer plate of 1 tablespoon of the wet food.  If they seem interested or sniff it, I pet them and praise them.  Then they usually eat it.  I proceed to give them some wet 2 times a day after every other milk feeding (at this point I am bottle feeding about every 6 hours).  After about a week of this, I start leaving out crushed dry (in your case, you don't need it to be crushed since he's 5 months old) in their bathroom at all times, and record how much is missing each time I check on them (about every 4-6 hours).  Before offering the wet Halo for the first time, heat it up in the microwave for about 8 seconds.  This helps the aroma be more pungent and makes the food more enticing.

Well, let me know if this helps and what you find out, and if you have any other questions.  I wish you the best!

Best regards,

Holly Martin
Texas A&M University
Animal Science B.S.
Cat Care/Behavior Counselor
holly06petlover@yahoo.com