The feral cat that has been coming to our house over the course of the winter has had her kittens. We walked the tree line & couldn't find anything. Nor could we hear them. We also have a 3 year old burn pile of leaves & tree limbs that they have been sleeping in..all the strays..No kittens in there either. where would she have had them? There are holes all over the brush piles in the far tree line..but there are also much larger animals over there. Coons & the like..I would like to catch them before they are here when they are 3 months old & getting into everything here.
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Feral cat had kittens
- Thread starter nannerpuss
- Start Date
They are sooo good at hiding the kittens - predators take them so often, moms have to be extra cautious. I'm sending vibes you find them before they get too feral. Keep you eye on mom - after about five weeks or so, try to trap her and spay her. Maybe by then, the kittens will be out and about and you can trap them too.
But you know, even if you trap them at three months, you can spay/neuter them. Better than more kittens!
God bless you for worrying about them...
God bless you for worrying about them...
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #4
I love cats & kittens..
I would love to have my own shelter for them..
We call the mom "big eyes"..they all have names here even tho they are feral.We will look again in the next few days.It rained last night so I hope she has them in some brush pile away from the drafts & rain..we had one that dropped 4 kittens off on us a few years ago..due to the fact we fed her at times & she knew we would take care of the kittens..she would bring them closer to the house every few days then one day they were all here & the mom was gone..my daughter has one of the kittens..I called her cottonball as she was so soft..
Best not to try to find them - she'll just move them, and there's no way to be sure you got them all.
What we do is just keep putting out food for her (if you haven't been, maybe start?). A steady source of high protein food (put out kitten food) will really help her. Best, she'll probably start bringing the kittens there when she's weaning them and they start to eat on their own.
If you plan to foster them and get them adopted out, you can work on trapping them once they're all around 8 weeks or so old. That's young to be away from mom, but if you're going to foster them to get them homes, it is usually easier to adopt them out when they're younger, and they do socialize a little easier then.
When we first started rescuing, we didn't really have an adoption network, so we did not try to trap anyone for spaying/neutering (kittens can safely be spayed as young as 7 weeks) until they'd spent their 12 weeks with mom. That way if we trapped mom instead of one of the kittens, it didn't matter so much as that's around the age she'd be pushing them off to be on their own, and if we didn't find them homes, they'd learned what they needed to to be on their own and just part of the (sterilized) feral colony.
Laurie
What we do is just keep putting out food for her (if you haven't been, maybe start?). A steady source of high protein food (put out kitten food) will really help her. Best, she'll probably start bringing the kittens there when she's weaning them and they start to eat on their own.
If you plan to foster them and get them adopted out, you can work on trapping them once they're all around 8 weeks or so old. That's young to be away from mom, but if you're going to foster them to get them homes, it is usually easier to adopt them out when they're younger, and they do socialize a little easier then.
When we first started rescuing, we didn't really have an adoption network, so we did not try to trap anyone for spaying/neutering (kittens can safely be spayed as young as 7 weeks) until they'd spent their 12 weeks with mom. That way if we trapped mom instead of one of the kittens, it didn't matter so much as that's around the age she'd be pushing them off to be on their own, and if we didn't find them homes, they'd learned what they needed to to be on their own and just part of the (sterilized) feral colony.
Laurie
Yeah, I wouldn't worry about them. I'm sure she has them in a safe spot.
