Lost with new kittens

Ok....

Without getting into the while story... my wife and I were "given" a pregnant stray cat this weekend, we own one five year old cat already, so the "finders" of the stray thought it would be a great idea to give it to us... We did not want to put the cat on the street, so we had been calling all over the area "Oklahoma" trying to find a non-kill shelter to bring her to with no luck.

We are animal lovers, but we are a bit out of our league on this one, we have never cared for baby kittens, or any baby animals for that matter... We were given the mother on Saturday, and she had it's kittens on Tuesday morning around 7am.. a healthy litter of 5.

My main question is there anything I need to know with the new litter? I did notice there were a few flees... So yesterday at 6:00pm I called the vet to ask if I could administer flee medication to the mother, to which the lovely person on the other end replied "we closed at 5:30, it is against the rules for me to even answer questions" and hung up on me.

They seem to be healthy, we had the mother and kittens in a box with blankets yesterday, however when I woke up today she had moved the kittens to a small area behind the couch..(is that normal) she is very friendly and does not mind if we touch the kittens, but I do not know if touching them may cause harm...

Should we just let them be, should we interact, what exactly should we do/know with new born kittens?

Fleas are a real problem b/c they can kill the babies. There is lots of info already on this site about caring for kittens. Try

http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=74659

Also, if you go to the top of the forum, in the upper right corner is a search function, type in fleas kittens and posts will pop up. I know from reading many of these posts there is at least one med you can give mama that won't hurt the babies... can't think of it... and the babies/mama can be washed in Dawn dish detergent and COMBED with a flea comb to help with the problem.

This is not first-hand advice... so I hope someone with that type of experience will be along shortly.

I can't answer the question about fleas, but I can tell you that it is normal for momma to move the kittens if the box you provided is in an open area. It is instinct to bring them somewhere easily defended.

It is also a good thing to interact with the kittens. That will help to socialize them so they are adoptable.

You need to contact a differet vet. You'll need a flea comb and some Dawn dish detergent to get rid of the fleas. They can kill newborn kittens. Confine mom in ONE room with litter pan, food and water. She has to stay in there so she doesn't move the kittens. A spare bedroom would work well. If not, then buy or borrow a very large dog crate to keep everyone in one area.

Its fine to handle the kittens from day one. Just don't take them out of mom's sight! Do not allow your other cat to have contact with the new cat and kittens for several weeks - she will be very defense about it.

One thing is that you should be feeding the mom kitten food, since it is calorie-dense and will help keep up her strength.