New kitten isnt eating as much as i think she should?

Question

I recently took in a stray kitten about a month ago. She is now around 4 months old. She hardly eats anything. As far as dry food goes she wont touch it at all. I've taken her to the vet for her shots ,,deworming and defleaing and she seemed to get a clean bill of health
She eats if i'm lucky 9 ounces of wet food in a 24 hr period. I give her a 3 ounced pouch of wet food in the am and at dinner time i give her a 3 ounce pouch and a 3 ounce purina kitten food,,,most of the time she will finish that by the next morning....i dont think this is enough but i cant force her to eat. Shes so small. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

food ,,,,are you sure it is for kittens and not grown up cats ,,sometimes kittens need more warmth than food but then try it with milk only

Answer 2

Ok. You are missing an important part here. Specifically, the main difference between grown cats and kittens. Grown cats will eat and eat and eat and eat. They will eat even if they are not hungry.

Kittens on the other hand will ONLY EAT AS MUCH AS THEY NEED. This is a beautiul thing about kittens, because you can leave them a full bowl of food, and just refill it days later when it's low. When my cat was a kitten, it was not uncommon for a bowl of food to last her a week.

If the vet says she's ok, I'd trust the vet. It's their job. And you probably should still be feeding her wet food though.

Answer 3

Please don't feed dry food at all and leave wet down all dayh
Smart kitty!
Nutrition since there are so many bad things out there is very important to your cat’s health
Contrary to what you may have heard; dry foods are not a great thing to feed a cat.
Please read the label on what you are feeding? What are the ingredients? Do you know what they mean? Is the first ingrdiant a muscle meat like chicken or meal or other things?
http://www.catinfo.org/#Learn_How_To_Read_a_Pet_Food_Ingredient_Label
Dry foods are the number 1 cause of diabetes in cats as well as being a huge contributing factor to kidney disease, obesity, crystals, u.t.i’s and a host of other problems. Food allergies are very common when feeding dry foods. Rashes, scabs behind the tail and on the chin are all symptoms
The problems associated with Dry food is that they are loaded with carbohydrates which many cats (carnivores) cannot process them. Also, Most of the moisture a cat needs is suppose to be in the food but in
Dry, 95% of it is zapped out of dry foods in the processing. Another thing, most use horrible ingredients and don't use a muscle meat as the primary ingredient and use vegetable based protein versus animal. Not good for an animal that has to eat meat to survive.
You want to pick a canned food w/o gravy (gravy=carbs) that uses a muscle meat as the first ingredient and doesn't have corn at least in the first 3 ingredients if at all. Fancy feast is a middle grade food with 9lives, friskies whiskas lower grade canned and wellness and merrick upper grade human quality foods. Also, dry food is not proven to be better for teeth. Does a hard pretzel clean your teeth or do pieces of it get stuck? http://www.felinefuture.com/nutrition/bpo_ch4a.php

Please read about cat nutrition.
http://www.newdestiny.us/nutritionbasics.html
http://www.catinfo.org/feline_obesity.htm
http://maxshouse.com/feline_nutrition.htm#Dry_Food_vs_Canned_Food.__Which_is_reall

Answer 4

Since you've only had her a little over a month, it will still take some bonding for her to fully trust you. Also she is small so she will work up to eating more. It is great that you care for her so much already though. Keep up the love and she will be healthy in no time.

I took in a stray about six months ago. Since then, he's gained enough weight to be healthy and his fur has become beauitiful instead of matted. Over time, she will be just the right weight and she will know who made her that way. Good luck.

Answer 5

Dear Sunshine,
Your new kitten of four months may not be eating her food for a couple of reasons. try these out and i hope one of these exaples will work...
1. May be the kitten had once before you, a home which was abusive. this means she may not be eating because of the harsh things they could have done! solution is, she may just need a day spent just cuddling to relax her in knowing you will not be alike to her former owners. then because her depression will aventually cover, she may begin to eat again.
2. you never know what a cat likes and dislikes. try a couple different types of food. canned food is best. towards cats, they would take canned over dry food/bagged food any day!
3. maybe she has eaten something bad outside before you have had her. maybe something such as drugs, human food that doesn't agree with her stomach, or possibly suier water. My cat four years ago drank suier water when my sister desided she would "walk" our cat. she came home and only ate about 1 ounce of food every two days for about a month. she began to loose weight until finally, but slowly, her system recovered from that serious error.
My advice to you is to just calm it down, but you should try these out immediatly.
Love,
Summer Fox

Answer 6

Cats do not need as much to eat as most people think. You've said that the cat is small so she'll be likely to eat less than a larger cat too. Cats are very good at regulating their food intake and most wont over eat if they aren't hungry. If she has a clean bill of health, and you are making food available I wouldn't worry. She probably just isn't very hungry!

Answer 7

There's no way you can force kitty to eat more. Her brain tells her when she's had enough. As it is, she's eating a little over 1/2 lb of wet food per 24 hrs.