one cat and nine kittens

nekosama

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We have two sister cats that both had a litter within a week of each other. Savek had four underneath our porch and Vash had six in the barn (one died shortly after birth
)
Yesterday we had an amazingly heavy rain. Four inches of rain. The porch flooded and after a frantic half hour we managed to pry the boards up and save Saveks kittens. But Savek was no where to be found. So we dried the kittens off and gave them to Vash.
Vash excepted them and nursed them like her own and seems to be taking care of all nine kittens just fine.
We're trying to get Savek to take her kittens back but she doesn't seem to want them.
So my question is, can one cat take care of nine kittens by herself?
All but one seems under weight and the slightly older kittens aren't pushing the younger ones away from nursing. I'm not exactly sure how old they are but there eyes are open and they can barely crawl.
If you could help me and ten kitties would be very grateful.
 

krazy kat2

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Many mother cats do just fine accepting kittens from other litters. It is not unusual for mother cats that are close to intermingle litters and care for all of them.
If they are not gaining weight or getting enough to eat, you could try supplementing their feedings from mom with some kmr or some other kind of replacement kitten milk.
 

StefanZ

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Hopefully it will go OK. Although you must be take double care to give the nursing mom very good food, including extra calcium. (milk products f.ex, low lactose milk, yoghurt, cheese.
raw yolk (feks together with minced meat) is very good if you can get salomonella-free eggs.

Even some KMR together with her food may be good.

As Krazy Kat said, you perhaps must give some extra supplementary food to the kittens. As now, preferably KMR, or other brand of kmr (=substitute) milk.


Good luck!
 

nursedoggett

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yes, calcium is very important if she is nursing 9 babies. My momma cat had 7 kittens, and she had low calcium, we had to supplement her diet. I practice a modified whole food diet in my house, so I included things like fresh fish, egg yolk, fresh cooked meats and organ meats, as well as the best kitten food I could afford.
Stay in communication with the vet, maybe even get her a check up at 10 days. There is a small risk of low blood calcium leading to ecclampsia, and a very large risk of anemia.
Doing these few things kept my momma cat healthy, but we had a lot of trips to the vet to recheck the calcium. Now she is so fat and the babies are 12 weeks.
 

goldenkitty45

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They probably will need some bottle feeding at some point in time. 9 is a lot to feed from one cat. I had a mother/daughter that were bred a week apart and the daughter decided she didn't want to be a mother cat and dumped her kittens on her mother to feed.

Unfortunately her 2 kittens didn't survive as the "grandmother" pushed them away too after a few days.

Be prepared to lose some as its tricky to get all of them well fed.
 

catkiki

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Originally Posted by krazy kat2

Many mother cats do just fine accepting kittens from other litters. It is not unusual for mother cats that are close to intermingle litters and care for all of them.
When I was a kid, we had 2 female kitties, mother and daughter, who gave birth the same night. Bones had 6 kittens on my oldest brother's bed and Cotton had 5 on my other brother's bed! They then put all the kittens together and took care of each other's kittens. We didn't know which kitten belonged to which mama!

And pity the poor dog that wondered into OUR yard! We had one dog actually trying to climb a tree to get away from 2 very protective and angry mamas!
 
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