Becki, I start feeding my babies a mixture of Sustical or Ensure and Science Diet canned kitten food when they are three weeks old. They love it and run (well, waddle actually) to me when they smell me near the cage, crying and hollering for something to eat. When they're 4-4 1/2 weeks old I take some of the cat food or ferret food that mom eats and put warm water in it. this softens the food and brings out the flavor in it. They wolf this down also. I would be really careful using a heating pad with the babies, it could burn them if it gets too hot and they do have very sharp little teeth if they decide to chew on it. One of those warm water heating pads would probably be pretty safe. That breeder ought to be shot for selling 5 week old babies. Is this normal practice for them or was it an emergency type thing where something happened to the mother and the babies were left orphaned? Cindy Sooy [Posted in FML issue 0910]