I Need Kitten Care info!!!!!!

Ok so a stray cat my bf and I pickd up back in Aug had 6 beautiful kittens on the 14th of sept. I found this site while doing some searching so I figured this would be the best place to get my care info.
The babies are going to be 5 weeks old this friday. Momma is not very happy with feeding them anymore(as they have very sharp baby teeth) She will lay and start feeding them, but if they start fighting or biting she will just get up and walk away. Sometimes she does give them a full feeding, but I'm just wondering when i'm supposed to start taking control of baby feeding and when it's going to be ok to start giving them away. My boyfriend and I are possibly keeping two of the babies, my neighbor would like one, a co-worker is taking one(which leaves 2-3 unclaimed)
Also, I'm wondering if its really bad that i let the babies roam the apt. it's a small 2 bed apt and momma kitty and our other cat generally keeps close tabs on them when we cant. They go to bed when told(weird?) and are very well mannered! THEY LOVE TO PLAY!!! They also love feet! I have a few of them that will try to sit on my feet while I walk, or try to climb up my or my bf's pant leg when we are sitting at the comp.
If any of you Grandma's and Grandpa's out there have some info or suggestions please please please reply!!!

Hi,

Glad to hear that your fur grandbabies are doing well! Sounds like normal kitten like behaviour to me climbing up legs etc! I've been wearing jeans for the past 4 weeks (Pixie's 4 kittens are now 8 weeks old).

Are they eating solids at all yet? I would recommend you transfer them onto this asap. With mine I used wet kitten food and would put some out from about 4 weeks to see if they were interested, I would also put some on my finger and rub around their mouths, by 4/5 weeks all ours had the hang of it and were at least then less reliant on mum for feeds - Pixie would be the same, get annoyed with them for biting and only give short feeds.

I would say it's fine to let them wonder around the apartment, as long as you've made sure there's no potential dangers. At that age we let ours have full use of sun room and our big living room and then since about 6-7 weeks they also have use of the hall way, kitchen and stairs. They are getting to the age where they will like to explore. As long as it's safe i'd say go ahead.

As to them leaving, I would say no younger than 8 weeks, and preferably 10-12 weeks.

P.S I'd love to see some pics!

My babies all started copying mum and eating solid food at around 5weeks. They also starting using the litter tray at around the same time. I wouldnt worry too much about mum cat not feeding them much. Ziggy will get up and wonder off every time we stood up!!

As for roaming the apartment..... It was about 5weeks when our guys got too niosy to have them in our room with us anymore, so we moved their bed into the living room. From they could access the kitchen with the food and litter. I live in a two-bed bungalow, so I'm happy for them to have a free roam.


We let Lola go at 8 weeks mainly because she ate different food to the others and it was to awkward stopping the others eating it. Diego will be going next weekend (He will be 9 weeks.) Pixie will probably go the weekend after. And Links is a keeper anyway...

Oh Yeah.... We want pictures!!!

As soon as I can borrow a digicamera i will totally upload some pics. Most of them just look like Honey(momma). My mom watches for other cats roaming around her house to try to see if she can figure out who that father kitty is. 4 of the 6 are gray with a little tan and a little black and very tiny white here and there...One of the ones we decided we must keep has a little tan mohawk on her gray head, so of course we named her Mohawk(Mo-Mo for short) Then the other 2 really suprised me when I saw them. All tan! Since they were born noone really handled them, except me. Honey(whom we've actually just started calling Momma) was very fond of me since that first time I met her last spring, so she pretty much "gave" me the "go ahead" to pick them up and check them out. Anytime my bf or sister would pick one up, Momma could tell and would run into our bedroom and stare at the person until they put the baby back....I thought that was kinda funny. Of course she eased up on my bf and let him cuddle the babies too. At first we thought we had 4 girls and two boys. But then, one of the gray ones that my bf picked out to hopefully keep, turned into a boy. That was a shocker! lol

I do have another question though...How many litter pans would it be best to have with all the cats? We have Momma, Mutt(who is siamese...not sure if she if full or cross...whom we got off the street as well. She had a collar was very well trained. Looked in the papers and talked to people around the area but noone claimed her. Couldnt have been more that about 4-6 months old) and 6 little babies for a total of 8! That's alot of animals! Well, my gram has 3 cats, 3 dogs, about 13 birds and fish...plus my sister and her baby, and my uncle..lol

As for the babies eating food, it was kinda funny one of you mentioned they will just copy Momma, Mo-Mo last night was actually IN the food dish and came out with one tiny piece and ate it...should I let them eat the Cat food or get them kitten food?

Anyways, yeah. Thank you again for the great advice.

Momma should have been on kitten food through the pregnancy and nursing the kittens as this goes into them and helps with development and the extra nutrition they need. Put them all on kitten food until they have learnt to eat, then put Momma back on her adult food.

Don't switch Momma too quickly though. You'll have to mix Kitten/Adult at first or she could end up with runny poop from the drastic change in diet.

As for the litter trays... I have two, but all 4 kittens and my adult all use the same one and the other is not used at all. I would say that one until they are using it so they don't get confused with too many around, and then add another every 2days until you have 3 or 4. Kitten poo is very small for a long time and theirs pees would only fill a teaspoon.

You will probably need 2 at least anyway if you are keeping 2 kittens.