My girlfriend's daughter just found and adopted a new kitty. The daughter wants to feed the cat water but the girlfriend wants to feed the kitty milk. I told the girlfriend that a few years ago some bartendress was telling me that a cat could literally shit itself to death if fed milk, but I added that I wasn't sure if I really believed that. The girlfriend asked me to look it up on the internet.
Once the cat has been weaned, it should not be given milk. If the kitten is really young, there are cat milk replacements one can buy at the store. Milk should be given as a treat only if it's found out the cat is not lactose intolerant. Most cats lose their ability to digest lactose after weaning. This can lead to diarrhea, gas, and bloating. A new kitten should be taken to the vet anyway. He or she would be able to give the best advice.
If the kitten needs milk but is allergic to cows milk, it's not too hard to find goats milk in either liquid or powdered form.
We give our cats a teaspoon of lactose free milk as an occasional treat, coastal chedder cheese crumbs, and let them lick empty Greek yogurt containers. Never had a problem with any of our cats. Our previous cat lived to be 20 years old. I will check with our vet next month.
I let my dog lick yogurt containers and used to stuff her pills in cheese even though dogs are generally lactose intolerant. The vet even told me to try putting her pills in cheese. Dairy is usually fine as a small treat, but my dog drinks water 99% of the time.
Water for my cats. I offered them milk years ago when they were kittens, and they wanted nothing to do with it. -Matt
I spent a few summers on my uncle's dairy farm when I was growing up. I can say from experience that of one places a pan of fresh, whole, unpasteurized milk on the floor one should quickly step back. The barn cats will come running and you don't want to be in the way. It never seemed to do them harm but these are animals that hunted for food. I'm not aware they were ever fed store bought cat food or ever visited a vet.
I grew up on a dairy farm and we had lots of cats. They loved milk and drank it every day. We never fed them anything else except maybe some left over food scraps on occasion. They hunted on their own for anything else. The cats would even wait while you squirted milk to them directly from the cow!
hahaha, my sister had goats on her farm and would do the same thing with her cats. Too funny. We just give our cat milk, but sometimes he'll try and drink some milk if the kids leave a ceral bowl downstairs in their game room. He seems OK, I never knew that milk was considered bad for cats. We've always usually given them water.
