Orphan Kittens & Drinking water

Question
Hello! I am unsure if you can help me, but any advice would be helpful! I have been hand raising 2 orphan kittens since they were 2 weeks old and have never encountered a problem with them until now. They are currently 9 weeks old and they eat moistened food just fine. For the past few weeks I have been concerned with their water intake. They won't touch it by themselves, so I have been adding two tablespoons extra in their food bowl after I have added their moistened food, so it makes it somewhat separated from the food. I have also recently been giving it to them by eye dropper because they sill refuse the water bowl I have been leaving down for almost 3 weeks. I have no idea what to do about this and I start college in a few days and I am concerned about them. Do you think if I switched them to hard food would they figure out drinking water on their own? Any advice would be helpful. Thank you!

Answer
Hi Robyn,

Thank you for your question.  It is quite possible that they are getting enough liquid from the moist food and water mixture so they do not need to drink as much water.  When you switched them over from the milk replacer to cat food, did you try putting the milk replacer in a bowl and let them lap that up? Sometimes that helps to transition them to drinking water.

You can try what you suggested, feed them dry food and see if they drink more water.  Just keep an eye on them to make sure they are drinking...Another thing you can try is a little bit of flavouring in the water to entice them.  Maybe a little bit of liquid from a tuna can or something similar to help attract the kittens to it.  

As long as they are ok and not dehydrated, I wouldn't worry.  And it does sound like they are getting enough liquid from their wet food.:)

Hope this answers your question.

Katherine