"runt syndrome" in kittens (TW for mentions of animal death, but important for cat owners to read)

[Yanderemenhera]

runt syndrome is an occurrence in litters of kittens that I see almost always, kittens are all born to be about the same size most of the time but as they get older and they can see and hear there can be slight differences in size and physical ability, and the one who's even slightly smaller or slightly weaker becomes a runt. a runt is pushed and kicked out of the way of food by their siblings, sold food or milk from the mother. the runt is effectivly starved by their own siblings since they are the weakest target and as the starvation continues they get weaker and easier to bully. eventually the kitten will become so emaciated they get so weak they cannot even make an effort to eat and they die within a few days even if you do intervene with forced feeding via things like an infant needless medication syringe. and once the kitten does die, a new runt will be chosen by the surviving siblings until they grow up or there's only one or two kittens left alive.

this is something i've seen time and time again, for context as to why, I live in a rural area with a lot of cats on my property, there's at least 25 that live on my property right now.

"how the hell do I prevent this? this is horrible." I hear you ask somehow, well what you can do assuming you're taking in a pregnant/mother stray cat and you can't really seek out gidence from a vet since seeing a vet is thousands of dollars, as bad as it is, as soon as you notice a kitten is a runt you will need to have it feed alone with the mother at the very least, the best shot at the kitten surviving and not getting to the emaciation stage though is feeding it with kitten formula. a lot of times a mother cat can become neglectful tords the runt and prioritize the stronger babies so the mother might not care or miss the runt, by removing the runt from the litter and caring for it separately it is almost garrenteed to survive (unless the kitten had some poor genetics and was already ill or dies from an accedent)
kitten formula can be found at Walmart for about $20 for a massive can, you can also find special feeding bottles for the kitten cheap too, depending on the age of the kitten you might not need to feed them all the time, but it depends and most kitten formula containers have feeding instructions based on the age of the kitten.

now, this is more of a rare situation, but you can sometimes give a runt to a mother who lost all of her babies and still has milk, some cats enjoy being a mother and become so happy to have another baby they will take care of it without a second thought. however some cats might become violent with the baby that isn't there's, what you need to do if you're going to do this is introduce the mother to the runt and supervise them, grooming the baby and trying to feed it is a green flag! but hissing, growling and generally a mean demeanor is a red flag and the baby will need to be removed at once.

if you can't afford milk and you don't have another cat, the best you can do is try to have at least 2 feeding periods a day with the mother and remove the runt's other siblings, but this might not work due to the mother not liking the runt and should only be used as a last resort since most kittens do still die with this.

[Yanderemenhera]

if the kittens are older, and do not require milk there can still be a runt. but with runts that made it to that age, it's a lot easier to care for them. you just need to give them their own food bowl and feed them in another room away from their siblings.