Hand Rearing Part 2

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So now our fit, healthy babies are 3 weeks old and you should have increased the amount of time between feeds. You should now be feeding every 3.5 to 4 hours.

Another major cause of death in hand-rearing is OVERFEEDING. I have seen this far too often. Even if the youngsters want more food, do not exceed the amount they should have as they can get diarrhoea and/or colic and die. If you have felt you have over-fed a puppy or kitten and their belly is hard, miss a feed. Remember, you are using a substitute milk not the real stuff so it’s much more concentrated.

At about 4 weeks old, I start introducing solid food, the quicker, the better. With puppies, I make scrambled egg with goats milk. I use nature diet and mush it with goats milk and I will use a good puppy complete like Hills Science Diet and soak the biscuits to a mush. For kittens, I use Felix Kitten Food and mush it to a paste and start leaving biscuits down, which, surprisingly, they will start to investigate. I use Hills Science Diet Natures Best Kitten. I generally start with four meals a day and then give them a bottle twice.

From about 5 weeks, I only allow them a bottle before bedtime as a comforter and I now expect them to go 7 hours clear through the night. At 7 weeks, they loose their bottle completely, they are now on 4 solid meals a day and will be ready to go to their new homes at 9 weeks old. I do keep my hand reared pups and kittens a bit longer than mother reared pups and kittens.

But they do get better!!	Remember, they will need lots of toys and noise and sight stimulation.  They also need a safe box for when you are not around (and lots of newspaper!)