Ewww! She ate one of her foster kittens!

At our shelter we have a mom cat who had 4 babies last week. Another cat who gave birth a day earlier lost all kittens but one, and she wasn't nursing or being a good mommy so we put this little kitten with the other mom and her 4 kitties. All was perfectly well, she is such a good mother to ALL of them. Then, yesterday, a volunteer went to check on her and the foster kitten was GONE, no blood, no hair, only a ribcage remaining. She obviously ate it.

What would possess her to do this? She was doing so well for a week and treated it as her own.

My husband suggested something absurd, but maybe there's a little truth to it. You tell me: The mom and her 4 kittens were all black. The foster kitten was an orange tabby. Would this have anything to do with it? There is also another black foster kitty in there and he's doing fine.

Color has NOTHING to do with it. Since you said all the others died except one, whatever they died from the one kitten survived a little longer then the rest. Maybe it got worse and the foster mom sensed problems that caused her to kill the baby.

Sometimes it happens. IMO Mother Nature knows best. Its sad to witness but the cat knows something we don't!

I seriously doubt the color had anything to do with it.
Apparently the foster mother was not being "aggressive" towards the kitten if she nursed it for a week.....it maybe it died during the night and she was cleaning up the nest for her other kittens...or she knew something was wrong with it. (Maybe something wrong with the whole other litter since it was the only one to survive at all.)
QUESTION: The mother of the dead kittens...has she been FIV tested????
Losing a litter of kittens can be a sign of that.
I don`t know if the kitten being with the foster litter for a week could affect them (or the Mom for ingesting it) ?????
Somebody out there have any more info???????????
Linda

The other Mom tested Negative for FIV, and we think the kittens died because she was very young and wasn't nursing or even acknowledging their presence. She just ignored them. They all died except the buff one which was pretty malnourished, but did well on the foster mom, until she ate it. You are all right though, mother nature knows why and I'm sure the mother had a good reason. She is an excellent mommy cat otherwise. Maybe it did die in the night. We will never know.

Originally Posted by GoldenKitty45

Color has NOTHING to do with it. Since you said all the others died except one, whatever they died from the one kitten survived a little longer then the rest. Maybe it got worse and the foster mom sensed problems that caused her to kill the baby.

Sometimes it happens. IMO Mother Nature knows best. Its sad to witness but the cat knows something we don't!

Click to expand...

Thats what I was thinking.

I've heard of this happening to people and their chinchillas - mom and baby seem to be doing fine, then nothing but a skull. Chances are, as others have indicated, mom detected something wrong with the kit(ten) that we couldn't easily perceive, and to keep other predators from being attracted to the nest, she had to get rid of the ailing babe, one way or another. =/

Just putting a strange kitten in with a nursing mom does not always work. You need to do a transfer of scents for the whole litter and the new kitten. You do not keep the new kitten with the momcat 24/7 just for nursing and for cleaning, then remove it until you are sure that the queen will completely accept it. It didn't smell like her or her kittens therefore it was a threat and needed to be disposed of. Sad, but that is the way it usually works with surrogate moms.