My friend's kittens are now 3 weeks old, which I know is still a little early for weaning, so I've been told.

But what would you wean them onto?

We tried mushed up wet kitten food, and they didn't fancy it, but maybe it's still too solid for them.

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the food is fine, they're just still too young.

We put the kitten food through a blender, so it turned into a paste, you may have too force some food into them to get them too start eating, 3 weeks is a little early so shouldn't worry about it too much at the moment.

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How old should they start to be weaned? They're huge atm, and just worried that mom is getting rather skinny now She was small to start with.

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mum should be being fed high quality food and lots AND LOTS of it!!! she is boobie feeding!

kittens start weaning at 4-5-6 weeks depending on the kit

wet kitten food, i use allplaws and pouches and cooked chicken breast chopped up into little bits.

mum starts weaning them at about 7weeks it gets less and less til she gets fed up at about 10-11weeks and tells them to bugger off!!

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Ha, the owners have the mom on **** to be quite honest. I told them to get her on a decent diet, but they are like... she's a moggy, she can stay on tesco value...

I'm taking one of the kittens when he's 16 weeks or older and gotten him neutered, as my landlord won't let us have him until he is. The owners have some purely kitten food, wet and dry, as that's what I'll have him on, I think.

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well what do they want/expect? my kittens do have and whiskas/felix when they are older to get them used to what new oweners feed (cant force people to feed what i do) but at least for the first 6 weeks they have to have good quality food to build them up. ESP mum does to, not sure what they want to happen really!

she should be spayed esp if she is losing body condition i hope they arent letting her out she could be pregnant again i hope they get all the kits neutered best thigns for them! and mum!

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It's not possible to over-estimate the amount of food a nursing queen needs. It still surprises me every single time and you'd think I'd know by now.

Hi, I agree with what’s already been said about weaning and the age they’ll wean.

But if you are at all worried that the kittens aren’t getting enough from mum then you (the breeder I mean) has to start weighing the kittens daily (as well as feeding the queen up – I have never ever known a lactating queen to over eat). Kittens should gain a minimal of 100grams per week, which works out at around 15grams per day. If you (or their breeder) can start weighing them everyday at least then you will know if their weight gain is normal or worrisome.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s great if the kittens can gain 200grams a week… this 100gram per week is more just a minimal to know they’re doing all right.

Do you know what they weigh now and what they weighed when they were born?

I think you are very right to worry about the mother cat…. Depending on how bad she is… it could be anything varying from a slight problem that just means she needs extra feeding, but it could also be a very big problem of the kittens aren’t getting enough nutrition from her. In which case the kittens would need to be supplemented a good 4 or 5 times a day with kitten milk in a bottle and possibly syringe feeding of (semi)solids in the next week or 10 days. But again there is no way to know this for sure unless we know their exact weight and how it is altering daily.

best of luck trying to get the breeder to see sense.

Well, the kittens are proper chunky, which is fine, and they only wanted me to worm them at 3 weeks (I said 2 as they never wormed the mom beforehand but nevermind), so they finished their first treatment today It made me laugh that they didn't realise that they had to be wormed etc, and all that malarky, which I call common sense

I've given the breeder (my mate) a load of Purely kitten food for when they are to be weaned. I'm taking a black male from the litter, but I'm not able to take him, due to landlord, until he's at least 4 months and neutered, which is fine by me and my friend. I've said to get the whole litter to be done, but she wants the mom to keep having litters blah blah blah. I can't really talk sense into her at the moment.

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