Stray moved her kittens to my porch...should I intervene?

One of the kittens is eating wet food very well, but the other two aren't showing any interest right now even though they nibbled before. I tried to bottle feed them, but they only ate a little. Not enough. So I let their mother walk into the cage and nurse. I've decided to let them still have contact with her a few times a day when I can be there to supervise the whole thing. She was very well behaved and didn't mind going into the cage to care for them. When they were done she did carry one back into the dog house they were using before, but I put him back in the cage with the others. I wish she could be with them all the time, but she doesn't know the danger of parked cars. The kittens have adjusted well to their new surroundings and have been sleeping in their bed and playing in there. They are just going through a hissy stage right now and need more socializing. I will have to post new pictures of them. They have the cutest faces.

When Coal was found in a parking lot, her mother had been poisoned and crawled under a dumpster to die. She was about 4 weeks old when her bio mommy died. There was no weaning process, just suddenly, no food or milk or protection or anything. She and her sister we dehydrated and malnourished. We were able to nurse them back to health with kitten formula and now they are big happy healthy kitties. The formula says to start weaning them at 6 weeks, so if these babies are right at 5 weeks, and eating wet food, I don't see any harm in using the kitten formula and wet food versus mommy's milk and wet food. I mean, of course a mothers milk is always better, but the mommys milk will do no good if they are harmed by a vehicle or something. 

 

I think this is the best for the kittens and that is actually incredible that mom cat trusts you enough to just let you open the cage for her to go in and nurse the kittens. WOW - that is just great. I would continue to try to feed them the wet kitten food and hopefully soon they will be completely weaned and you can start to find them homes. If you are really unsure and need kitten advice, I would suggest posting a thread in the Pregnant/Kitten Forum here on site You will get great advice in that forum on how to properly care for those kittens. http://www.thecatsite.com/f/36/pregnant-cats-and-kitten-care They are SO precious and you are doing a wonderful, loving, caring job with them.

Hmmmm, I would go ahead and take the kittens. I've raised kittens from 24-hours old, and at least at this point in their lives they can stablize their own body temp. & if they won't eat cat food(try smearing their faces with it, works very well!), you can always supplement with cat milk. Since they're more than 3 weeks old, the colostrum(ugh, I probably spelled that wrong), level has dropped way down from what it was, and just after a few days and some encouragement, you can have the kittens drinking their milk from a bowl and eating kitten food with no issues, I'm sure.

I must say a big thank-you for your caring of the momma and babies thus far. Not many do take the time.I guess that's why there's still such a problem with cats & dogs overcrowding all of the shelters....

It's hard to know what to do! I am a cat trapper a TNR person..and I think I know more than most people. I had a stray deliver kittens under my shed. I left them there until a week ago when they started wobbling out. Well I got a big dog kennel and put the 6 babies with Mom in there..she went insane. So what I ended up doing was getting a big box putting the babies in it ..inside my shed with the door open. Mama goes in and nurses them. A few times a day I bring them out and they romp around. I have to stay out there because there are woods all around. Then I gather them up and back to the box. This will work until they get big enough to jump out. LOL. It's not a science but I think you have done well with them. At 5 weeks or so they will tame down nicely.

Thank you everyone.

My kittens are 10-11 weeks old now and doing well. I found a home for the all black one but still have these two cuties with me. Also, I got the mother spayed two days ago. They told me after the spay that she was already pregnant again.

Wonderful update!!!! AWW they are just SO cute, really cute :love:!!!! You have done a great job for ALL of them. So sorry about mom being preggie again, but honestly, you did the right thing. Unfortunately, most female cats get pregnant very quickly after the kittens are weaned or being weaned. Bless you for your efforts!!!!

They are both cuties! That's wonderful news that momma cat is fixed! We've had a couple that were pregnant when we got them fixed, & that's hard to do, but the best choice.