Big Kid Food

Garland took to big kid food with enthusiasm

Kitten's first teeth start coming in around their 4th week. They will be more mobile, and will start being able to eliminate on their own. This is when you can start introducing solid food into their diet. This can be a little earlier or later than the 4th week depending on the individual kitten development. 

You'll need a shallow bowl, kitten wet food, and some puppy pads (or towels), and plenty of wet wipes (it'll get messy). When first introducing kittens to wet food, mix up some wet food with their normal formula into a kind of slurry. The same blender bottles used to mix up the formula are great for shaking up the wet food into the formula.

To introduce the kittens to the slurry put it into the shallow bowl and present it to the kittens. If you're bottle feeding the kittens their instinct it to come to you for food. Try presenting the food to them from your hand, a little on your fingers to get them to lap it up. You may have to open their mouth and put a dab of food in their mouth to introduce them to the taste. Once they are licking it from your fingers, gradually move them to the food in the bowl and get them to start lapping it from the bowl. 

Some kittens take to lapping this up out of the bowl on the first try, and others will be harder to convince to eat. If you have some picky eaters who refuse the wet food slurry, and want to go back to the bottle, try mixing a smaller amount of wet food into the formula so that it's still liquid enough to flow out the bottle. This introduces their pallet and their gut to the taste of the wet food, and makes them more likely to accept the wet food in the bowl.

Depending on how well the kittens are eating, you may have to supplement some of their meals with formula after they've tried the wet food to make sure they're still getting enough to eat. Keep weighing the kittens before and after the meal to check their progress. If you get the really tricky eaters, you may try some human baby food. I recommend Gerber chicken formula. It smells horrible, but it is crack for kitties.  

Diana, aka Wonder Woman, tries out
a face full of kitten slurry

If mama cat is with the kittens, then simply start giving mama cat wet food a few times a day. The kittens will naturally start mimicking their behavior and will be interested in whatever she is eating.

Be prepared for kittens to get messy. They won't understand the whole "eating from a bowl" thing at first, and will get food everywhere. 

As the kittens become accustomed to lapping the slurry up out of a bowl, you can make it thicker and use less and less formula until you aren't mixing any formula into the wet food. After that, you can start mixing some dry kibble in with the wet food in small amounts to introduce them to dry food as well. The key to weaning it to be patient, and keep trying different things and different types of food until you find something the kittens will eat. 

Soon you'll have everyone eagerly lapping up dinner