Tube Feeding of Kittens

by Kirsten Nielsen, DK Misty Brown

It can sometimes be necessary to lend a helping hand with the feeding of a single kitten or maybe a whole litter. The reasons for this can be many, maybe the queen doesn’t have milk, or maybe the litter is so large that there isn’t enough milk supply for all to thrive.
In a situation like that the weakest kitten(s) will always give up, and unless a helping hand is reached out they will die. Kittens are born with a large glycogen depot and can live for about 12 hours without milk, they actually come with a “lunch-pack”. Kittens develop the sucking and sinking reflex in the last phase of the queen’s pregnancy, therefore you can’t feed prematurely born kittens with a syringe, but must tube-feed them if they are to have chance.
In the wild a certain rejection process is necessary, as the queen cannot provide food for so many, and a small, healthy, and

robust litter is top priority, the strongest must survive to continue the line. But since we can only have two litters a year for ethical reasons, our attitude is probably a bit different. When we have the newborns, we wish they all would survive, they don’t have to fend for themselves later on.
If the kitten is healthy and wants to live, we will happily help it with a food supplement, but I would like to point out that it must be a kitten that looks to be healthy. Most who haven’t tried putting a tube down before will probably be afraid of putting it in the air pipe, but that is practically impossible. There is greater risk of this by feeding with a dropper or a baby bottle, as the kitten may sink the milk wrong. If the kitten is weak, it will tire fast and will not suck. If the kitten sinks wrong, this will often lead to pneumonia, which almost always means death.

Tube-feeding is an ideal solution, because:
* The food goes directly into the stomach.
* You can control how much each kitten gets and can cover its needs
* You don't have to feed as often, as you can feed larger portions.
During the day you can start by feeding every third hour and every fourth hour during the night.

Necessary equipment: The tube used is quite thin, it is also used for premature babies. The syringe is a common one-time syringe, size 10ml., which fits the tube. As milk-replacement I recommend KMR-milk, a “ready for use” milk-replacement. You should also have a set of scales, a cloth to place the kitten in, and some kitchen roll to dry its behind after the feeding, if the queen won’t wash the kitten herself to stimulate the bowel movement.
The feeding itself is simple. You take the kitten to be fed, and measure from nose tip to the lowest ribs – if you have difficulty finding the lowest ribs measure to the navel with the tube, then mark the tube. Weigh the kitten, a newborn kitten weighs 70-100 grams and recommended measures are 1 ml. milk per 30 g. kitten. Pull the milk-mixture into the syringe, make sure it has body temperature, assemble the tube and press down the piston, so the tube is filled with the mixture, there mustn’t be air in the tube. Dip the tip of the tube in some warm water, then it slides down more easily.
You place the kitten on a surface and lift the head back a little bit, then you carefully open the kitten’s mouth and lead the tube down

to the mark. If the kitten is a little lively, you must hold firmly around the head and the tube, so the tube stays in place, then press the piston slowly, till the wanted amount of food has been administered. Pull the tube slowly up again. If there is still some mixture in the syringe, you should be careful not to press the piston while pulling up the tube. If several kittens are to be tube-fed, it is a good idea to place them in a box as the procedure progresses, so you can remember who has been fed.
Cleaning the tube is a separate chapter. Pull water into the syringe, assemble the tube and rinse it completely clean. Keep it in a bowl or the like till it is to be used next time. Before the next feeding, you boil some water and pour it the boiling water over the syringe and rinse it before use. You can also temperate the milk-mixture by placing the amount you need in the boiling water, - use a small glass for this. Remember, the level of hygiene must be high, as the kitten is very susceptible to bacteria, especially if the kitten has not had any of its mother's milk. A stomach infection may also kill a small newborn kitten.

Kirsten Nielsen

Supplementary remarks

by Niels Peter Hansen

As a rule, one has to bring one’s self to do it the first time one has to lay a tube. I certainly had to, when my British Shorthair Maggie’s kittens had to be tube-fed.
But as Kirsten writes, it is practically impossible to lay the tube wrong. If it is on its way to the air pipe, you feel a clear resistance and just have to pull it up again and start over. Once you’ve gotten used to it, tube-feeding can become quite cozy and almost touching. Quite curiously, the kittens start champing noisily as soon as the food starts flowing into the stomach, and at this point the very understandable protests stop.
In my experience, tube-feeding has a positive “side effect”: there are almost no kittens who get handled as much at a young as tube-fed kittens. It is still noticeable in the temper of Maggie’s kittens, who are now adult and settled in new homes. The British Shorthair generally has a lovely temper, but these cats have especially good imprinting.
A little bit about the ethics: as Kirsten writes, nature provides a strong sorting out in litters. I don’t believe in tube-feeding a kitten, because the mother refuses to care for it. This is often a sign that something is seriously wrong with the kitten, and it usually dies within the first 24 hours. It is of course something you should consult your vet about.

In Maggie’s case the situation was that because the delivery had been so tiring she couldn’t produce enough milk for the kittens, who seemed to be healthy in all aspects and with a normal birth-weight - some were even on the big side. In such a situation, I think, it is fully responsible to tube-feed.
Another obvious situation, Kirsten mentions, is when an otherwise healthy litter is so large that it is difficult for all to get enough room at the milk-bar. In this case you could also consider the alternative of using a “foster mother”. Try contacting your club - they might have contact to owners of females who have just had very small litters and maybe arrange to “station” some of the kittens there.
There will not always be such a female at your disposal, however, or she might be so far away making the transportation of kittens problematic. In that case tube-feeding is a better choice. If you should be brought in a situation when you need to tube-feed, I recommend you keep in contact with somebody, who has tried it, mostly for the “moral support” you will need. It is also necessary to consult your vet about the project for a professional assessment of whether the kittens can survive and live a good life, if only they are supplementarily fed.