At what age do you start introducing and giving water to a kitten?

[Marie]

He is 3 weeks and 4 days old( no mum) and I am raising him and taking him to the vet but I for got to ask the vet this question so any advise is highly appreciated

Also if anyone knows of a great site to help me raise the kitten that would be great!!
I did m fair share of research but I didn't see a site I liked..

Thanks

 

[bloomorningglory]

You can leave it out for him at 4-ish weeks. That'll be about the time he's ready to start with some canned food/water mixed and you can start leaving dry food also. As he starts to transition to canned food and then hard food he'll start needing it.

 

[Stevie]

I had a litter of kittens that I had to raise because the mother was killed by a car when they were 2 weeks old. I introduced water when they were around 4 weeks old, some of them drank it right off but a few took a few days before they got the hang of drinking from a bowl.
As far as raising a kitten, it isn't to hard. I fed mine formula every four to six hours during the day then gave them a feeding before I went to bed and didn't feed them again until the morning. I didn't really find much info on the internet that I used but more or less did it hands on. I used kitten formula at first but then switched to baby formula, the powder kind and made it with a little less water than normal b/c cats milk is a bit thicker normally. They did fine on it. I bottle fed them with a little bottle I got at the grocery store but was able to use a bowl after 4-5 weeks of age. I would just make sure to give the cat lots of love and attention. I would wrap mine one at a time in a little blanket so they felt like they were being cuddled by their mom. Mine had each other for company so it was probably a bit easier for me. You can start introducing food in a week or so. Get some of the dry kitten food and mix it with a bit of the milk you normally feed them with to soften it. They will pick up on eating fairly quick. I did give them canned food sometimes but found out it was harder for their tummy's and sometimes gave them the runs so I stopped. It's also worse for their teeth b/c the dry food naturally helps clean the teeth where the canned actually coats their teeth a bit causing cavities. They also get more picky if you start with canned and will try to refuse the dry food thinking if they hold out you will give them the canned.