kitten 7 weeks old

Ok I was looking something up on my phone and the first thing that came up after I looked it up was a question on yahoo. The question was something like why would a mother cat kill her 7 week old kittens. From what I remember of the info that the person gave was that the mother nursed 6 or 7 kittens and when she left for work there was enough food and water for all the kittens and the mother cat (at that time was 7 weeks old of the question but probably a few years old by now) and when she got back from work she went to check on them and she found a kitten dead in the middle of the recroom floor that they stayed in which was accoriding to them huge. Then another went misteriously missing. So my question is why would a mother cat kill her 7 week old kittens instead of when they was newborns.

Most commonly (though there are always exceptions) a mother cat will kill her kittens if she knows something is "wrong" with them. This can be anything from an illness to a genetic defect. In order to protect the rest of the litter the Mother will "dispose" of the one. 

I have heard several stories of people who had Queens who rejected one kitten but none of the others. The people then hand rear the kitten only to find out later that there is a genetic defect. Cats are very in tune with these sorts of things and can often tell if something isn't right long before we can. This isn't to say that kittens shouldn't be hand reared if rejected by the Mother as many survive and thrive, just that usually if Mom does something that seems bizarre or unnatural to us she often has a reason for doing so. 

maybe by accident too... i know mine can get pretty rough sometimes. and i have to go and break it up, due to one getting attacked in hunt mode by five other kittens. the momma may have not noticed her strength or weight. is the mom dealing with this okay? i'd say if she is okay with it, and not calling out for the kittens who have gone away, then it may have not been on accident. *hugs*
 

Another possibility, is if the mom got high stressed by something. Really high stressed. In such cases she can kill her kittens. Compare it with "redirected aggression".

I do suspect some of the stories "a dog got in there and killed two of the kittens" - it may also been the mom who high stressed did that killing. If she by any reason couldnt chase away the intruder.

And maybe the kitten died rather than being killed.  7 weeks is the sort of age (weaning) when some congenital defects start to make themselves apparent. 

Well in the question on yahoo it doesn't seem like the mother was calling out for the kittens cause they say that the mother was acting jelouse of all the kittens. They also said that there was no way any other animal could have gotten in to the room they was in. They also said that the kitten that they found dead was tore up like something was eatting on its body but there was no sign of the one that just disapppeared

It might not even be true. I wouldn't worry too much about a story on yahoo.

How is your kitten doing ? 

He has his eyes wide open and is wobbling around trying to walk he loves cuddling with me and his mom and he loves crawling up my bfs sleeves. Since he doesn't have any siblings to romp around with he doesn't do anything except eat sleep and be cuddled with. I try and have him play with the toys we have for his mom but I think he is alil to young to play since he is 11 days old but he licks us and loves on us just as much as we love on him and his mom. His mom licks us also so I think he got the idea from he

He sounds adorable . I love orange tabbies.

Here is his favorite spot

He makes a nice little scarf

Right he is such a loving boy and his mom is a loving lil girl. I think he is a medium length fur cause he was born with short fur and his fur has gotten alil longer now. I have noticed his eyes point in different directions. It freaks me out but makes my heart melt when I see him wanting to be close cause I think he might grow out of it but I will bring it up with the vet (when we find one). We are taking them both when he gets. I don't know if Tabby (name of mother cat) has had shots or dewormed so we are killing to birds with one stone so to speak. We are getting both spayed/nutered as soon as he is old enough. We found a fairly inexpinceve vet that has all good reviews except one. The reviews are mainly from ferret owners but there is a couple from cat owners. One person said that it was $80- for all the stuff like deworm earmeds and like 5 other things. They said that they was afraid they would skimp on quality but that their fears was put at ease about that.

Worm medication is very cheap. I think it was $7 last time I got it from the vet.  I would get them de-wormed as soon as he is old enough, to make sure he is getting all the nutrition he needs. If he has a heavy infestation they will be using a lot of the food he eats.

We don't know anything about his mother except that she was found by the lady that we got her from and that she was already house trained. We also know she is layed back and so is her lil man.

Trust me by the time he is old enough we will have a vet chosen and we will have an appointment set up for him and his mother. I will probably think he should be old enough by the time my bf gets his secound check from the work he started today. Maybe by his fourth check but we are taking mom in probably on the secound check so we can get her out of the way cause by then he should be on solid food and shouldn't need to nurse on her anymore.

tabbymommy said:

 I think he is a medium length fur cause he was born with short fur and his fur has gotten alil longer now. 

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I'm not trying to be critical just sharing knowledge- all cats are either long haired or short haired. Sometimes the term medium haired is used to describe a fluffier short coat or a sleeker long coat, but really there is no such thing. It is normal for all kittens to fluff out as they get older, which is the stage he is in now. In a few weeks it will become very noticeable if he is a long hair or short. Right now it sounds like he is just in his fuzz phase. He is absolutely adorable and is clearly very well loved! 

Thanks and I wish I could say the same for the poor little black and white kitten that we found out back. We found it and half its face and scull was gone or caved in. I told my bf that if we had known that that little guy or girl was out there and abandoned we would have brought it to our mama we named Tabby. She only had one kitten so she has plenty of milk for the other and if not I would have bottle fed the little one. My bf even agreed we could have tooken the little one to Tabby. She is such a good mom that she probably would have excepted it