Mother cat seems scared of new kitten... wont nurse or keep him warm.

My Ragdoll had one kitten on 2-16-13, I know its uncommon for a one kitten litter, but I have taken her to the vet for xrays to make sure there are no more in there. The vet told me the kitten is pretty dehydrated so I began bottle/syringe feeding the kitten every 4 hours. Mom seems to freak out when kitten gets near her tummy... and if he makes the effort to suckle she begins kicking him and bolts from the room. I do not have a lot of experience with this but I have never seen this reaction. Any advice??

The apparent advice is you yourself must proceed to take care of the kitten, almost like it was an orphan.  Food, stimulating, keeping warm, etc...

Google on fabsayc and handraising of kittens, and messybeast and handraising of kittens....

also www.kitten-rescue.com...

for ideas.

Hopefully her maternity instincs will kick in, but you cant count on it.

If it doesnt, my advice for you is to spay her in the long term, purebred or not. No good point to have her as your MotherQueen and the ancestor for your breeding , unless she is something verry extra as show cat or so.

Here, question is, if she perhaps is sore in her tits, and this is why she is so aggressive.

Or she perhaps has aches somewhere else. Cats in pain dont have the same patience as else.

She may having some sort of mastitis (inflammation in the tits).   If so, you must contact your vet.

When nobody is eathing her milk, she should be sore, even without mastitis...

So, contact your vet anyway...  If she doenst has mastitis, she may perhaps instead get some extra hormones.  I had read oxytocin can both awake maternal instincts, and forward producing milk...

(Im not sure which is the case here; if she doenst has milk, get the milk and instincst started, but if she HAS milk and yet no instincts - best to stop that milk...).

do you have any other friendly cat or dog, who can step in as foster mom??  Try.

Good luck!

Keep her warm, but not too warm. Keep her hydrated. 

If not she will loose forces and will be uniterested in eating...

When feeding, she shall be on the tummy, and head somewhat raised, the same postition as she herself suckle from mom...

If she looses strengh, you can smear some white caro syrup on her gum. A solution of dextrose/glucose is also good, even better.  Honey is OK if in hurry and you dont have anthing better.

A good, home made pedialyte is:

1 litre water

1 soup spoon destrose/glucose

1 tea spoon kitchen salt...

Good for hydrating both children and kittens.

Good luck!

Hey, i know i'm late but this was because you must have touched or made large amounts of contact with the Kitten after the mother give birth.

Cats and dogs have a tendancy to give up their young once they are not the first to touch, feed and give their new born attention, this is why they often make then and keep them hidden for a week or two.

LivinOfXperienc said:

Hey, i know i'm late but this was because you must have touched or made large amounts of contact with the Kitten after the mother give birth.

Cats and dogs have a tendancy to give up their young once they are not the first to touch, feed and give their new born attention, this is why they often make then and keep them hidden for a week or two.

Click to expand...

Nay, lets not exagerrate this. Quite a few forumists here has assisted at the birth, even doing most of the work, and thus, being the first to touch the new life.  No problems at all later on with contact mom and child.

Even if the mom was a semiferal.

So this tale of abandoning the youngs if a human had touched or handled them is mostly a myth. It may be true for wild rabbits and deers, but not for cats.

What you say is partly true, if the mom by any reason dont trust the human. Yes, in that case they tend to hide somewhere. The classical scenario are farmers cats, who instinctively know the farmer will usually drown the newborn kittens. So the moms hide the nest, and come forward with the kittens firstly when they are halfgrown 6-8 weeks.

Here, it is an individual problem of this mom. It strikes me now, reading for second time, the mom had perhaps pains in her tits, perhaps beginning of mastitis...  And that is why she didnt wanted to be nursed.   Im deep sorry I missed this possibility, being eager on the emergency of as quickly as possible help the newborn.

Some moms accept the kittens even if mastitis and great pains, we had such a case recently of Hero mother, but most dont.

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