When we think of little kittens, many of us associate the tender image of kittens drinking from a bowl of milk, an image that has been recreated ad nauseam in cartoons, series, movies, and children’s stories. For this reason, it is common for us to offer this drink if we find an abandoned cat or adopt one.
However, it is necessary to differentiate between the milk that puppy cats suck from their mother, from the milk of other mammals that we can buy in the supermarket. If you want to provide well-being and health to that little four-legged friend, you should know under what circumstances they can drink milk.
When they are in the nursing stage, that is, when they are newborns, cats feed exclusively on the milk they suck from their mother. From it they obtain all the nutrients, food and hydration necessary for their health and proper growth.
However, as they grow, they lose an enzyme called lactase, which is necessary to digest the sugar in milk (lactose). As a consequence, milk no longer suits them, causing intolerance and even allergies. If a cat drinks milk after weaning from its mother, it could suffer an intolerance that would manifest itself in symptoms such as upset stomach, gas, vomiting or diarrhea.
Thus, the main sustenance of an adult cat must come from specific cat food, either feed or wet food. In addition, they must drink enough water to stay hydrated. The amount of food that the cat needs to be well fed will depend on its age, its size, its breed, the physical activity it practices, whether it is indoors or outdoors, as well as whether it suffers from some pathologies.
However, some cats digest milk better than others, so they can afford to take it from time to time as an occasional treat. In these cases, you should make sure that they don’t feel bad, you have to offer it without lactose and very sporadically, in small quantities. Because in addition to risking making it feel bad, milk has a lot of fat and calories, which increases the risk of the animal becoming overweight, a condition that has harmful consequences for its health, increasing the probability of suffering from certain diseases.
In the case of small orphaned kittens that are still nursing, you should offer them special milk for cats in this circumstance. They are adapted products, enriched with vitamins and amino acids and low in lactose, in order to provide little kittens with all the nutrients they need without feeling sick.
