Feeding Newborn Kittens - When Are They Ready for Solid Kitten Food?

     It can be confusing to know when newborn kittens are ready for each particular kind of kitten food, but there are a few basic guidelines that you can follow that make the process much easier. If the mother cat is available, she is already providing the best food available for them when they are first born. As they grow up, however, you will slowly transition them toward a healthy, wet kitten food that they can eat on their own. This is done in discrete steps that are easy to follow.

Step 1
Newborn kittens will look to their mother for all the nutrition and care they will need for now. As long as you see to her needs, you will need to worry very little about what the kittens are eating. All you will have to do is monitor them and make sure that they are nursing, but be careful to not handle them until they are two weeks old to ensure that the mother does not reject them. If they are not doing this or the mother is deceased or unavailable, you will need to feed them every hour or two with a special liquid kitten food provided by your veterinarian.

Step 2
At about four weeks of age, your kittens will be ready to move on to the next phase. Mix quality canned kitten food thoroughly with liquid formula until it reaches the consistency of a thick milkshake. Place this in a bowl and lure the kittens to it either by placing a bit of it on your finger or on a small rubber nipple. They may not want to take it from the bowl at first, so you will probably need to encourage them.

Step 3
When the kittens are six weeks old, start reducing the amount of formula in their food mix. They should be eating on their own from the bowl at this point and their teeth should be coming in nicely. Over the course of about two weeks, you will steadily reduce the amount of formula until they are eating entirely canned kitten food.

Step 4
You can start transitioning your kittens to dry kitten food when they are about eight weeks of age by mixing it with wet and steadily increasing the ratio of dry food to wet food. Dry food is not particularly healthy for cats, however. Cats are carnivorous creatures and dry food tends to contain a large amount of grains, which can lead to feline diabetes and other health problems.