"gregz" > wrote in message
...
> Brooklyn1 <Gravesend1> wrote:
>> On Thu, 6 Dec 2012 10:14:14 -0600, "MaryL"
>> > wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> "Gary" wrote in message ...
>>>
>>> Janet Wilder wrote:
>>>>
>>>> She has started taking formula from a medicine dropper. I have to put
>>>> it
>>>> in the side of her mouth and then she will slurp and swallow.
>>>
>>> A plastic syringe is great for hand feeding small animals. It holds more
>>> food than a medicine dropper and is also easy to control the flow. Just
>>> a
>>> thought for you. I've used them for hand feeding ferrets when they are
>>> sick
>>> and won't eat on their own.
>>>
>>> Gary
>>>
>>> ~~~~~~~~
>>> Good suggestion! My vet gave me several syringes (no needles) so I
>>> could
>>> follow a pill with some water when my cat needed to be medicated.
>>>
>>> MaryL
>>
>> Any pet shop sells tiny nursing bottles with nipples for feeding baby
>> kittens and puppies... I have several, they work very well, never had
>> a kitten that wouldn't nurse from a bottle... a medicine dropper or a
>> syringe is just not normal and the animal knows the difference.
>
> That's what I said, something natural.

But if the animal won't suck you have to get the stuff in there somehow.

My roommate had a very sick cat. While we were awaiting test results, I was
giving her vitamins with a dropper. I would wrap her in an old blanket and
she would sit in my lap, lapping eagerly at the vitamins. Sadly that was
all she would eat and she had to be put down a few days later due to feline
leukemia.

But then what my cat Maui needed liquid meds, she refused to take them in
the eye dropper. However she lapped them right up when I put them in a
spoon. I think the reason for this is that I fed her from a spoon when I
first got her. The vet surmised that she was probably 8 weeks old and not
10 weeks like I was told. She didn't quite seem to know how to eat from a
bowl. So I would put some moist kitten food, thinned a bit with kitten milk
replacer into the spoon and she would lap it up. From then on, she just
loved eating from a spoon.

My current cats? They won't eat from a spoon. I haven't tried a dropper
with them. No need.