Abandoned Kittens and a Nursing mom.

I currently have a mama cat, her kittens will be 8 weeks on the first. She is still nursing them 1-3 times a day. I recently had someone contact me about taking in 7, 11 day old kittens because the mom has not been seen for 3 days now. She has been bottle feeding them but works a 12 hour shift job and is getting over whelmed with caring for them. Being as my mama is still feeding and she appears to still be full of milk, would it be reasonable to assume she would take over the care of these 7 kittens if I were to introduce her to them. If not I work from home so I am constantly here, so I can bottle feed if need be. She said she has called several people with no luck as well as shelters who have only told her they would be put to sleep... Any help, thoughts, and suggestions are appreciated.

Yes, you can surely try. Worth the try too. The situation not optimal, but what to do in desperate situations and you want to help?

Just make sure the kittens are reasonably healthy, and the mom disappeared by accident, not died because of some sickedness...

I had once seen a case when our merciful samaritarian took over two orphaned kittens to hers queen, after a couple days the kittens got sick and died, and our rescuer get known there were other siblings who perished earlier by this sickedness home with the first rescuer...  So the first rescuer did lied...  FIP I think it was.

Our Samaritarian was in greatly anxious several weeks if her queen got smitten.  Luckily she didnt.  Puh!  But it was a lesson for her and for us all who followed this case.

Give help with your queen if you can and wish. But make sure the kittens are healthy, no contagious sickednesses.

I have also noticed many rescuers who also have queens, do help with rescuing, but in unsure cases they  give bottle themselves, they dont use their queen if not 100% sure.

They are 11 days now, you tell.  The very most difficult period is now over, so if you can and wish...

Hand rearing is easier now.

Good luck!

Okay so I have the 7 kittens now, they are quite tiny, they do have their eyes open so its safe to say they are at least 11 days. My mama cat was not too thrilled at first. The guy brought them over in their moms birthing box. There was a lot of hissing and growling. I reset up my cats birthing/nursing box. There was some more hissing and growling. Finally she feed them for about 5 minutes and now shes acting a bit confused as to what she should do. I did the whole rub down with towels I even rubbed her 8 weeks olds on the babies, is there anything else I can do to get her more fond of the kittens?

I think that should do.  What you can perhaps do is to make sure she is relaxed. Play relaxing soft music, classical harp music is best, but almost any will do.  Feliway diffuser / spray...

Also, talk sweetly and lovingly to her.  Although I presume you are already doing it a lot.  

It dawned on my rubbing on them a little poo of her biological kittens may work, (I think I saw it sometime about orphaned foals) but it is probably to overdo.  As you can rub on other scents from the biological kittens...

You mentioned they were brough in their old nest, but you took them over till the new nest. Good.

Possibly a rub off with a wet towel inbetween, and drying off, so they would lose their old smell, could be good, but it is too late now.

I should have though of this tip earlier.

Also, if you surely are her best friend, her Ma, your own smell is  OK, so you handling the kittens is a plus.

Anyway, now you are in this new plane and flying.   I hope everything will go well, as the mom did gave them some milk, and soon will begin to wash them too, I hope.

(if she doesnt wash them, you must help with the eliminating).

They must be tough guys made of the proper wood, as hand rairing orphans is not easy, and statistically there is almost always someone who dont makes it.  Your precedessor must have done a marvellous job too.

Report often, I shall have my eyes open.

Good luck!

ps.  Did you took weight of your own kittens every day?  Proceed with the routine here too.

If you didnt, do it with these, as it is extra touchy now.

Use a scale measuring in grammes, easiest with an electronical scale. Kitchen or mail. They dont need to be fancy or costly.   Kittens should go up 10+ grammes "every" day, some day it may be less, but if a dip, or two days running less - sound the alarm bells, and give them extra....

In practice this is the easiest warning system if sometings is not developing well.

If all goes well it becomes a nice memory.

Be sure you write upp all results immediately for every kitten, so you have reliable statistics.