Five New Arrivals!

OldNotWIse

So, a stray cat that we took in a couple of weeks ago has just given birth.*

*will reserve rant on scum dumping a pregnant cat for another time.

Five beautiful little angels. I can't wait to finish work and get home to mom. Looking for some general advice really. We plan to keep them with her for a few weeks and then re-home them. I wont be leaving them at a shelter as I think most are full to the brim and suffering from funding cuts etc. I would much rather place them in good homes myself. When she is ready, she will be spayed and will have her forever home with us. She has settled in beautifully with our cats and we have all fallen in love with her.

I have a safe place for her to rest with them and an IR lamp for extra comfort. I know about worming and plan to stop off on the way home to stock up on lactose free milk and kitten food for mom. Also have to remove clumping litter in case the little critters eat it :P After that, just wondering:

* When can they be handled? I want them to be well socialised so they will be confident and friendly pets but I dont want to traumatise them or stress the mother.

* How long do they need to stay with her? Is it around 6 weeks?


* How soon after can she be spayed? Will she come into season again while nursing?

* Five seems like a lot, and I am afraid some of them might fade. Is there anything I can do to bolster their strength? Should I supplement with baby cat formula or would that be interfering too much?

Thanks in advance!

doubter

OldNotWIse wrote: »

So, a stray cat that we took in a couple of weeks ago has just given birth.*

*will reserve rant on scum dumping a pregnant cat for another time.

Five beautiful little angels. I can't wait to finish work and get home to mom. Looking for some general advice really. We plan to keep them with her for a few weeks and then re-home them. I wont be leaving them at a shelter as I think most are full to the brim and suffering from funding cuts etc. I would much rather place them in good homes myself. When she is ready, she will be spayed and will have her forever home with us. She has settled in beautifully with our cats and we have all fallen in love with her.

I have a safe place for her to rest with them and an IR lamp for extra comfort. I know about worming and plan to stop off on the way home to stock up on lactose free milk and kitten food for mom. Also have to remove clumping litter in case the little critters eat it :P After that, just wondering:

* When can they be handled? I want them to be well socialised so they will be confident and friendly pets but I dont want to traumatise them or stress the mother.

* How long do they need to stay with her? Is it around 6 weeks?


* How soon after can she be spayed? Will she come into season again while nursing?

* Five seems like a lot, and I am afraid some of them might fade. Is there anything I can do to bolster their strength? Should I supplement with baby cat formula or would that be interfering too much?

Thanks in advance!

If Mum lets you, you can handle the kittens asap.The earlier the better.Make sure your hands are disinfected. Keep an eye on the bellybutton, the string should dry and fall off within 7 days.
if mum gets stressed, feed her boiled chicken while you briefly handle the kittens.

They should stay with mum at least 9 weeks, 10 is better so they can get their first vaccination.
Deworm at 4,6,8,10 and 12 weeks.

She can be spayed when she has fully stopped nursing, in about 8 weeks.
It is unlikely for her to come into season again while she's nursing but it's not unheard of. Keep her in.
No baby cat formula at this point. Just feed mum good food, special diet from AD at the vet will give her strength back very quickly.

Good luck!

doubter

PS: five is a fairly small litter...my first foster came to me pregnant and she had 9...:eek:

SillyMangoX

Congrats on the new arrivals! Very good of you to take on not just a stray but all her babies too.

Handling: I've seen some people handle kittens from birth, obviously hands need to be washed etc before touching, as people like to do a daily weigh in to make sure that everything is growing as it should. This would be dependant on the mother's stress levels though, if she's showing distress at someone being around her babies then it may be a bit better to wait till they're older, around 2 weeks. So basically handle from as early an age as the mother will let you!

They usually wean at around 6 weeks but it's best off to keep them till at least their first vaccine which would be 9 weeks, it gives them time to socialise properly with their siblings and environment, learn valuable life lessons from mammy and just generally have a better handle on things before they go out to the big bad world. Some would even keep later than this, anywhere up to 16 weeks especially if you want to get them neutered before they leave (some vets do early neutering with kittens around 12ish weeks or when they weight 2lbs.)

Spay her as soon as the babies are weaned, but yes she could come in season while still nursing so if you can keep her confined indoors untill you can book her in that would be all the better so she doesn't come into contact with any males!

5 is actually a pretty normal number for a litter, as long as mammy is getting enough nutrition to keep all of them fed then they shouldn't fade, just check that all are latched on when feeding, that there isn't one that seems to be left behind. Again, it might be no harm to weigh them just to keep an eye on things and have some of the powdered kitten milk and a few bottles on hand just as a back up in case things don't go to plan. But there's no need to supplement unless you can see that one of them isn't thriving as much as the others.

Just as an aside I wouldn't give any milk to the mother even the lactose free stuff, just in case, the last thing she would need is a dodgy tummy with 5 new mouths to feed! Just plenty of water and as much kitten food as she wants (a really good one would be royal canin mother and babycat, when it comes to the time for the kittens to get curios about food it's perfect for them)

Best of luck with the babies, and of course, you must supply pictures. It's a rule around here you know :P

OldNotWIse

Thanks for the advice! I'll definitely try to get some pictures. Good point about the dodgy tummy. Now that you mention it, the last time we gave it to her she has diarrhoea so probably best to steer clear of it. I'll be heading to Maxi Zoo on the way home so hopefully they will have the RC food for mother and baby. I was also wondering, how often should the bedding be changed? I'm a bit worried now about infection as I had an old jumper and some fleeces in her bed and now the kittens are on them - hopefully they wont pick anything up? I didn't exactly boil wash them or anything beforehand

Cant wait til they start walking around and falling over and trying to bat imaginary butterflies with their clumsy little paws I used to foster but it's been so long I've forgotten about the joys My traumatised brother is reporting back to me every hour with updates - "so er...yeah still five....um yeah...still alive....um.....", also have the crazy cat lady II neighbour going in and checking on them. We have four pure black and...the star of the show.....a ginger! :P

doubter

change the bedding as soon as you can after the birth. Old flannel or cotton sheets are best.
In the first few weeks mum cat will take care of kitties feces, but I always changed mine every 2 days.
Make sure her litter tray is squeaky clean so she can't carry any dirt back into the bed. use non clumping filler and make sure there's a decent distance between nest and tray so she can walk off any bits of filler before she goes back nto the nest. And pictures...please!!!:D

aonb

How brave and kind are you OldNotWise!!! Ive got 1 abandoned baby kitten and Im freaking, and you've got abandoned mother AND 5 newborns - wow - respect!!!

Let us know when you are ready to rehome kittens, I know a lady who is looking for a kitten (she wanted mine, but Im trying to convert from being a Dog Person )

OldNotWIse

Mom and five babies still doing well. I can't believe how good she is with them. She has them absolutely spotless and all feeding. She is very relaxed and religiously cleaning them and their little backsides lol. We have a monster baby already - the ginger! I had forgotten how tiny they are at that age. Still, fairly feisty. I spent an hour last night just watching them feed and rumble and grumble. Even at this young age they are fighting over food and boxing the heads off each other. Tiny kitten boxing! Mom is very relaxed and rolled over to show me her belly when I scractched her head - she is super proud I started off just petting her and then after a few minutes, I could stroke the kitten's heads and then after that I could take one in my hands for a couple of seconds and she didn't mind at all. I guess she trusts us with them which is great I have photos on my phone but I have to try to get them onto the computer to put them up here :P

OldNotWIse

aonb wrote: »

How brave and kind are you OldNotWise!!! Ive got 1 abandoned baby kitten and Im freaking, and you've got abandoned mother AND 5 newborns - wow - respect!!!

Let us know when you are ready to rehome kittens, I know a lady who is looking for a kitten (she wanted mine, but Im trying to convert from being a Dog Person )

Ah well she does all the work herself In fairness I think an abandoned kitten withhout a mom is harder because you have to be mom. I remember fostering a litter a few years back, whose mother was to sick to feed them and so we set ourselves up with a feeding system and baby cat formula etc - my God what a nightmare! 6 hungry feckers that we simply couldnt fill. It would take two hours to feed them all and then the first one would start again! One of them actually pulled the teat off the bottle in his effort to get more milk and ended up covered in it Actually he's my boy now, as I fell in love with him and after we left them back at the shelter (when they were weaned) I was devastated and went back to rehome him. Now he's a huge tomcat but a real mammy's boy too because we bottle fed him

It would be great to get another one homed. We have one definite and one possible home at the moment. In case she asks, there are two pure black ones (they are the smallest), one that is exactly like her (long haired black with flecks of ginger), one all black with a kick-áss ginger stripe on his forehead and the ginger one, which is already "taken" lol

boomerang

Try and home them in pairs, if you're going to be homing them at nine or ten weeks. They continue to learn social skills from each other for weeks beyond that. It makes for a more well-rounded kitten who will better tolerate the addition of other cats later in life. It's also a massive shock for a nine week old kitten to take them away from their mum and siblings... Rehoming as a pair means they both have company, comfort and a playmate instead of long lonely days while the new owners are out at work.

Oh and push the black kittens first, they will be the hardest to find homes for.

OldNotWIse

boomerang wrote: »

Try and home them in pairs, if you're going to be homing them at nine or ten weeks. They continue to learn social skills from each other for weeks beyond that. It makes for a more well-rounded kitten who will better tolerate the addition of other cats later in life. It's also a massive shock for a nine week old kitten to take them away from their mum and siblings... Rehoming as a pair means they both have company, comfort and a playmate instead of long lonely days while the new owners are out at work.

Oh and push the black kittens first, they will be the hardest to find homes for.

Not a bad idea about the black ones. I think it would be harder to home in pairs but I'll certainly try! In the alternative, could we just keep them longer? :P

doubter

OldNotWIse wrote: »

Not a bad idea about the black ones. I think it would be harder to home in pairs but I'll certainly try! In the alternative, could we just keep them longer? :P

that would be best lol...13 weeks has always been my preferred age, as it's 1 week after the second vaccination and they are than fully protected and any possibly adverse reactions dealt with in a (viral) environment that they are used to..:-)

mymo

aonb wrote: »

Im trying to convert from being a Dog Person )

You're not a dog person, you just haven't met the right cat!
And the correct term is cats slave!

RC mother and baby cat is great, they also do a baby cat mousse for weaning, around 4 weeks they'll eat that like mad.

OldNotWIse

mymo wrote: »

You're not a dog person, you just haven't met the right cat!
And the correct term is cats slave!

RC mother and baby cat is great, they also do a baby cat mousse for weaning, around 4 weeks they'll eat that like mad.

You know you haven't had breakfast when that sounds appetising. Anyone for baby cat mousse and crackers? :P

All five still doing well, and mom very relaxed and doing a great job. One of the black ones is quite small, so I am a bit concerned about him/her but I've watched them and they are all feeding and seem fairly strong. Still, I think we will start doing a weigh in every night. Cord came off one last night. The ginger one is a real little monster baby. He beats the head off the others and climbs over them to get to the best feeding port. He has one teat that is clearly the best as it's the only one he'll drink out of. If mom turns over, he'll sniff it out again! I tried to put the small black one on it but he seems to prefer the lower down ones.

New Home

OldNotWIse wrote: »

You know you haven't had breakfast when that sounds appetising. Anyone for baby cat mousse and crackers? :P

:eek: BANNED!

OldNotWIse

New Home wrote: »

:eek: BANNED!

Lol, I didn't mean made from kittens :P

aonb

have passed on info about kittens - will get back to you via PM - where roughly are you based OldNotWise?

OldNotWIse

aonb wrote: »

have passed on info about kittens - will get back to you via PM - where roughly are you based OldNotWise?

Great thanks, we are in Dublin 24

OldNotWIse

We had a weigh in on Saturday night. Four are 125-130g and the ginger monster is 175g. Weighed them again last night and no change I am a bit concerned about them as they seem very small, or maybe it's just because the ginger one is so big. He is insisting on beating the others off what seems to be the best feeding place and spending his whole time there. We took him off for half an hour on Saturday to give the others a chance to get some. He was happy enough dozing away on my jumper We bought kitten formula (the RC was sold out so we got Beaphar, which the girl in the petshop said was the original kitten formula. Ah the smell brings me back, and all the grownup animals in our house are going mental for it! Anyway, they wont take it and I dont want to force them. I think the teat on the bottle may be too big I dont want to use a syringe as there is a danger of it going down the wrong way if they are not sucking themselves. Anyway, Mom loves it so we are giving it to her for now. I will be getting her kitten food today in town. Can I buy a "high street" brand so to speak such as Whiskas, or are we better to get a more expensive brand? Funds are a little low at the moment!

We thought it was a little cold where they were so we have moved them into the conservatory, with an IR lamp over them. They seem happy enough there and it means Mom has more space and can lounge on a sofa if she wants a break from them.

On the re-homing front I have to say I am getting really píssed with people. What is with the ginger obsession? I know they are not common and he is beautiful but one potential re-homer actually said she can "only take the ginger one" and I thought, well that's not very nice, there are 5 that need homes and you clearly don't care about them, I am not sure if I even want to give you a kitten as you clearly just want him for cosmetic purposes. The OH thinks I am over-reacting and is saying well a home is a home but I have someone else who I think will give him a better home, and has also said she prefers the ginger one but she could take another if he is gone. She sounds like a better owner! But if you do the maths... She could take a black one and the other could take the ginger.... Whereas if she takes the ginger...then it's just one home...

boomerang

Only tell people about the two black ones. Don't give people options. Then, when homes for the blackies are secured, you can mention you have a ginger.

These are all the rehoming tricks of the trade!

janmaree

I am astonished to hear that nobody wants black cats, what on earth is wrong with them? They are utterly beautiful, full stop, in fact every cat is beautiful. Frankly, imho it's generally the two-legged animals that are the problem. A rant for another day though. :mad:

Oldnotwise, you're doing a brilliant job and I have the utmost respect for you. As for the lady with the "ginger" preference, maybe she should just take herself off to the hairdresser.

New Home

janmaree wrote: »

I am astonished to hear that nobody wants black cats, what on earth is wrong with them? They are utterly beautiful, full stop, in fact every cat is beautiful. Frankly, imho it's generally the two-legged animals that are the problem. A rant for another day though. :mad:

"Furrism" should be outlawed .
Besides, black is the new black, it's slimming and goes with everything!! :cool:

janmaree wrote: »

Oldnotwise, you're doing a brilliant job and I have the utmost respect for you. As for the lady with the "ginger" preference, maybe she should just take herself off to the hairdresser.

:D:D:D:D:D

OldNotWIse

We have eyes! Ginger (of course he has to be the first to do everything) has started to open his eyes! One is open but the other remains shut. Is this a cause for concern? Also the smallest one had both eyes opened to slits. Delighted because I worry about this one, but it is obviously progressing ok. Are we out of the woods yet re kitten fade? I am still terrified every time I go to do a head count

Also, Mom has started taking breaks form them. Is this normal? Yesterday morning she was on the sofa sleeping while they were in the box. I know she might need a break away from them but obviously there is a risk then of them getting cold without her

No plans for this evening so I promise I will take lots of photos!

doubter

OldNotWIse wrote: »

We have eyes! Ginger (of course he has to be the first to do everything) has started to open his eyes! One is open but the other remains shut. Is this a cause for concern? Also the smallest one had both eyes opened to slits. Delighted because I worry about this one, but it is obviously progressing ok. Are we out of the woods yet re kitten fade? I am still terrified every time I go to do a head count

Also, Mom has started taking breaks form them. Is this normal? Yesterday morning she was on the sofa sleeping while they were in the box. I know she might need a break away from them but obviously there is a risk then of them getting cold without her

No plans for this evening so I promise I will take lots of photos!

No cause of concern' that's completely normal. they are developing fine, sit back, relax and enjoy the peace.It's going to get messy when they start using the litter tray...start collecting old newspaper and put that around the litter tray covering as much floor space as you can..there will be accidents...:D

OldNotWIse

doubter wrote: »

No cause of concern' that's completely normal. they are developing fine, sit back, relax and enjoy the peace.It's going to get messy when they start using the litter tray...start collecting old newspaper and put that around the litter tray covering as much floor space as you can..there will be accidents...:D

lol ok thanks!

Another weigh in last night. Ginger nearly 200g now. One of the black ones has almost caught up (he's increased from 135 to 175!) and the others have all increased 20-30g, so at least they are getting bigger. The littlest black one, the one I was really worried about, is now 150 (she was only 125g BUT....she is the only one who has opened her eyes fully. So I reckon she is small...but smart. Oh and did I mention beautiful?? :P

Meanwhile Ginger is doing laps of the box

OldNotWIse

A photo cometh! :P

OldNotWIse

High Five for Friday! This is the baby of the litter. At ten days old she is an impressive 175g. But...she is the loudest and was also the first to open her eyes fully. No name as I fear falling in love with her

doubter

ha she's HUGE for 10 days-seen them much much smaller.Nothing wrong with falling in love with Ruby Tuesday.:D

Nody

OldNotWIse wrote: »

High Five for Friday! This is the baby of the litter. At ten days old she is an impressive 175g. But...she is the loudest and was also the first to open her eyes fully. No name as I fear falling in love with her

Welcome to the life of a failed foster family :P

OldNotWIse

doubter wrote: »

ha she's HUGE for 10 days-seen them much much smaller.Nothing wrong with falling in love with Ruby Tuesday.:D

You think? Wait til you see her big brother! He's nearly twice the size. He weighed in at 200g a few days back! I have a picture of him at one day old, will try to put it up in a few. They are growing so fast. What I notice is when you look at them individually you dont notice the growth that much but when they are all feeding all of a sudden its like, hey look at the big carpet of cat - it wasnt taking up that much space yesterday. They had a pile on last night while mom ate - cutest thing ever - go team

I got her a few cans of Select Gold mother & babycat mousse and she seems to love it so, wages hit account today will be stocking up! She really likes the vitafit milk from MaxiZoo and it seems to agree with her better than the whiskas one.

doubter

OldNotWIse wrote: »

You think? Wait til you see her big brother! He's nearly twice the size. He weighed in at 200g a few days back! I have a picture of him at one day old, will try to put it up in a few. They are growing so fast. What I notice is when you look at them individually you dont notice the growth that much but when they are all feeding all of a sudden its like, hey look at the big carpet of cat - it wasnt taking up that much space yesterday. They had a pile on last night while mom ate - cutest thing ever - go team

I got her a few cans of Select Gold mother & babycat mousse and she seems to love it so, wages hit account today will be stocking up! She really likes the vitafit milk from MaxiZoo and it seems to agree with her better than the whiskas one.

wouldn't recommend any vitafit or other milk-if you want to give her milk, give her baby cat formula from the vet.keep in mind in nature they don't get milk-water is perfectly fine. :-).And yes, the kits are really big for such young ones , she's doing a fab job...looking forward to more pictures!!!:D