cat just birthed, appreciate some basic advice

My tiny feral kitten Kulu just birthed 4 kittens. It was hard work for her, the 3rd one was big and got stuck but finally came through.

I had to cut most of the umbilicals. Mother is in a bit of shock, giving her rescue remedy, all 4 kittens active and trying to nurse. She is small and they are big, so I hope they can all fine enough nipples and milk.

I was just able to move them from the very messy birthing towels to some clean ones.

Mother is shaking, purring and kneading, which can be signs of stress as well as contentment, not sure which. Is that normal?Because she came to me already pregnant and malnourished I have done my best to get as much nutrition into her. This is a higher risk situation because of that, as well as her very very young age.

I think she ate 3 of the placentas, one still waiting for her.

What are her needs for water and food at this point? Or is it sleep she needs most?

Should I move food and water to very close by? How about litter?

Are there signs of post partum stress I can be alert for?

Thank you

Thank you so much for helping her, it sounds like she didn't have an easy delivery. Rest is definitely important right now, and keep an eye out for continuing labor. As long as she seems content she should be fine. Since she is malnourished and underage it will be very important to keep her nutrition needs met.I would tempt her appetite with a good quality canned food and let her freely eat something high calorie like Kitten Chow. And of course lots of clean fresh water, best in the same room nearby. Litter not so close, they instinctively don't want to leave a odor that predators can follow to their kittens. But where she knows where it is.  Try not to stress her out by handling the kittens too much, but they must be weighed daily to see if they are getting enough milk. A kitchen scale works good.It sounds like you are through the worst I hope, good luck and keep us posted!

I hope this trembling is because of that hard work. Make sure she has it warm, and has fluids, and can rest as said above.

Smear some glucose sugar (brand name may be Dextrose or alike) on her gum may be a nice trick.  If you dont have glucose sugar, a little honey or white caro syrup works too.   Her blood sugar is surely low now after that hard labor.   

-  If she drinks, you can of course have some of this dextrose in her drinking water.  A trifle of kitchen salt too, and voilá, you do have a working home made pedialyte.

As she ate three placentas, she got some nourishment in her.  That is why some queens dont eat even a day after deliver.  while other eats....  I mean, dont worry too much if she hasnt much appetite the first 24 hours.

If you give her food, try to give something with calcium in it.   Some milk product for example   (but plain cow milk isnt good, unless you are know from before she manages cow milk well.  Goat milk works, bottled or fresh)

What happened with the fourth placenta?  Is it still inside her?   Are you sure?  they can be quick with eating it up...

Or is it laying with her, and she hasnt decided yet to eat it up?   If so, let it be.  Its not necessary for them to eat them all, just convenient.

Good luck!

Thank you for your input and kind wishes, I really appreciate it.

The glucose is a great idea, I have some raw honey. The trembling has stopped now.

I had to release the 4th placenta from inside her  and I think she was too tired to eat it at the time.

Now she has eaten it plus a large portion of raw cat food.

She is still really thin, and has been eating huge amounts of food since I first found her and started to feed her. I started to add Anitra Frazier's supplement mix to her food even before I saw that she was pregnant so she has had a month of high nutrition

I really upped the  calcium  once I saw that she was pregnant and got her into my house 2 weeks ago.And the raw food has bonemeal in it also. I am aware of eclampsia potential and have no idea how long she had been feral when she showed up.I think she must have been impregnated at her first heat.

I love that they are called queens. She certainly is, in my eyes.Pushing 4 large kittens out of a tiny 5 or 6 month old malnourished body is an amazing feat! And how she found her way to my home in the mountains, 8 miles from a paved road, is nothing short of a miracle.

All 4 kits seem to be active and nursing.

The only thing that has not happened is her personal clean up. Maybe she is too sore? Usually cats are so fastidious about cleaning.

I considered doing it myself but thought I will wait and see if she takes care of it later.

Good morning!

Thank you for your purraise Stefan. I have never done this before but am a health care practitioner who works with people and animals for my job, but it has still been a rollercoaster ride.Thank you also Di and Bob. I am really a newbie and so is Kulu!

Day 2 has dawned.

All are well, Kulu has done some self cleaning although there is more cleaning to happen. The kits are all clean.

After spending the first 24 hours recovering and eating and nursing, when I come to the nursery today, mamma Kulu is at the door  waiting for me rather than with the kittens. I guide her back to the kittens and sit with her and she settles down with them.

And I realized that I have no idea what is considered normal for mommas to be nursing/cleaning/snuggling during this time.

It makes sense that she does not have to be with them all the time, I just want to be aware if there is a bonding issue.

The kittens are all active and nursing and now I will monitor their weight also.So far I have just stroked them lightly while they were nursing. Now it seems I can handle them more, especially if she wants to be elsewhere in the room (she and kits have their own room, sequestered from the 1 year old feral whom I adopted a month ago).

She has neither urinated nor evacuated since giving birth and it has been about 24 hours since the last kitten was birthed.

I am not picking up stress signals, is that unusual?

And will she be more likely to spend more time with them if I keep the room dark?

She did really enjoy the outdoors (I live in a beautiful wilderness area) and since she has been in the house she has spent much of her time at the window, talking away whenever I am outside to hear her. Is that too much of a distraction now?

She is eating prodigiously. Yesterday she ate 7 meals - 2 egg yolks and big portions of raw food, all supplemented, plus all 4 placentas. Today she is also eating every 3 hours or so. I expect after a few more days we can cut down to fewer meals.

Luckily I work from home.

I really appreciate being able to have my questions answered. Thank you !

My Sassy had her kittens yesterday morning. She has not been staying in the nest at all times either. She nurses the kittens and cleans them. When she is out of the nest she runs back if any of them cry. I am that this is ok as long as she takes care of the kittens. Also, she will still eat alot because she is nursing.

Thanks for letting me know that this is normal. It is what my momma cat is doing also.

It is cute, when I come in she wants to sit on my lap and we both admire her kittens while I praise her for her amazing deed and after a little while she is ready to go back to them.

Evacuation occurred, hooray!

Day 3 and all is well.

All 4 kittens are thriving, Momma Kulu continues to eat her weight in food and is also releasing her waste in a timely manner, phew. Although very young, she is embracing motherhood. When I handle the babies and they squeak, she comes and oversees to make sure all is well. Her behavior has shifted, before I could not take her into my lap or pet her more than a few minutes without risking being bitten or clawed (she is feral and has only been in a house for 2 weeks). Now both happen many times a day and she is receptive and gentle.

It is cold and blustery outside but snug and peaceful in the nursery and I am grateful for all of the wisdom that has helped that peace to manifest.

Kulu and kittens were rushed to the vets yesterday after her milk dried up and she started to vomit.

The prognosis is that because of her size and malnourished state, she does not have enough milk to feed the kittens and so she cannot recover her health.

The good news is that the kittens, now almost 4 weeks old, all ate a mix of milk substitute (KMR) and canned kitten food when they all stayed there. They kept kittens and mama separate much of the time.

What I am trying to figure out is how to replicate the situation at home, where mama and kittens are all in the same large room together. She could get away from them by sitting in a high area, but she enjoys them and  makes herself available most of the time and so they keep nursing, and only one of the 4 is lapping up the food.Mama still has some milk and they are used to feeding on demand, and one of them is always ready to eat.

The room they are in is quite big and totally open. It does have an attached bathroom. I thought about putting the kittens in the bathtub for a couple of hours at a time, except that mama insists on using the bathroom for her litter box. If I put it in the room, she will not use it. So there goes that idea.

I cannot let her or the kittens be anywhere else in the house because my other cat has not yet accepted them, and that process is taking a long time.

I would really appreciate any creative ideas here, the kittens really have to cut way back on their nursing right way so they will wean fast, for mama's health to recover

Thanks in advance!

I'm not sure if it would work but I have seen pictures of people using a large men's tube sock with the end cut off and holes for the front legs as a barrier to them accessing her nipples, I also wondered if a babygrow / sleep suit with hole around the tail / bum area cut out would work when I thought I may have to make Daisy's kittens wean before her surgery to be spayed

An update and question

All 4 of Kulu's kittens went to new homes at the end of June at 10 weeks and are thriving.

Kulu and Kriya (my male cat) finally met after almost 3 months of sniffing through a door, and in short order became excellent buddies.They spend most of the day and night together.

There was a week at the end of June where we had one kitten left and all three of them had a wonderful time playing outside. Finally Kulu learned to play!

1 day after the last kitten left, Kulu went into heat and drove Kulu and I somewhat nuts for a week or so.

She was spayed 2 days ago (she was still in heat 22 days after she started, to my amazement) and she is now home, and supposed to be staying quiet.

However Kulu does not know how to rest. She has all of the energy of an 8 month old kitten who was confined to a room for 3 months.

She cannot tolerate an e collar and I am a bit concerned about the glue holding the incision closed on the outside.

No matter where I put her, she fights to get out. I am keeping her and Kriya separated for most of the day because they play so roughly, but am allowing them quiet time together

They really missed each other and since both are ferals, they are super sensitive and easily feel overwhelmed and threatened . I stop them when they start to get rough but let them sleep together.

She is a persistent stress licker/chewer/biter and built like a supermodel (all legs, 4 #) and a contortionist, so the incision area is getting either licked or twisted.

She has so much energy that she normally expends flying around outside, racing up and down trees and roughhousing with Kriya - she just can't help playing with anything (or nothing)

The site is clean and the tissue healthy but it is gaping slghtly ( really slightly, the skin is not seamlessly together)and there is a bit of a wrinkle showing.

I am wrapping her in an ace bandage for some hours every day - of course it drives her crazy but slows her down somewhat and keeps her from bothering the incision so much.

If anyone has any ideas about how to keep my wild child more quiet and contained and contented to be so, I welcome them. Kriya sits outside and cries while she sits inside and cries and he wants to come in a thousand times a day to see how she is. (But if I give them 2 minutes together they go into full scale attack play and he is big and muscular, outweighing her by 8 pounds)

Thank you

Satya

A trick used sometimes with horses is to give them less to eat.  So dont having so much to burn, they dont have the same energy.  But I havent never heard anybody try it with cats.  Still, who knows?

Being mom she had surely first quality food high with energhy too, lotsa of it.   now  she doesnt need the same amounts - you had cut off some?

Calming, relaxing music may perhaps also  do some.

They have semi-feral background?   Semiferales has usually a good healing meat, and their convalescent time is typically shorter than with your typical home girl.   Why, most rescuers {doing TNR] seldom keep them inside more than 3 days.   If necessary shorter.

So, proceed to make your outmost make her take it easy, but dont worry too much.

Good luck!

Thanks Stefan for your great ideas and support.

I did not consider cutting back on her food since she is  self regulating, and really skinny still and lost weight at the vets.

Plus having been feral for most of her very young life, she can be really anxious about food.

She is still getting super high protein, but that is just the usual diet I give the cats, plus veggies and supplements.When they are outside they do hunt and supplement their diets that way also.

She became pregnant when very very young and feral so by the time she showed up, halfway through her pregnancy, she was starving literally. I have fed her all that she will eat and for her entire pregnancy and birthing and the entire time she was nursing she ate as much as 4 cats every day and was extremely underweight still (under 4 #). That little tiny  cat would eat 16 ounces of high quality canned cat food (the biggest sized can plus a smaller one) plus veggies, egg yolks, supplements and treats!

Finally after she stopped nursing, her food intake dropped to normal and she is starting to put on weight and her coat has gotten soft and shiny, but it took 4 months.

The calming relaxing music is great, I have been singing and chanting alot around her. Actually she likes to join in by wailing along with me.

I did not realise that her confinement could be shorter - that would be fantastic. She was  feral in early March.

She had her surgery Wed midday and has been confined since then. My only concern is the incision area, she is extremely active outside, runs and runs and climbs and chases and hunts. She is the fastest cat and highest leaper I have ever seen.

Where it was glued there is a bit of gapping.

She was not spayed as a TNR but just as a regular cat, since she is now with me, and really, she has become a nicely domesticated cat, all things considered. I live in the wilderness and in summer my cats like to be outside during the day, but always inside by evening and all night. 

I wonder if vets use a more durable stitching/gluing process for TNR?

Letting her out would be wonderful for all of us (her, my other cat and me) if I don't have to worry about the stitches.

Satya

Update.

After considering Stefan's sage advice, I decided that 4 days confinement was going to be enough.

Luckily the beginning of the week coincided with an ongoing period of overcast, cool, sometimes wet and stormy weather.

And as soon as Kulu was given permission to go out into it, she decided that she was actually much more comfortable lying around inside much of the time.

And  as he said, she did heal quickly. So  when she and Kriya play as they like to do (which involves lots of wrestling and attacks and counterattacks and racing up and down the house or outside in trees and through the garden, with accompanying crashes, yelps, squeals and other sound effects) everything seems to be holding perfectly well internally. I can't say the same for the house and garden, but that's okay.

Thank you!

Satya

StefanZ said:

 
A trick used sometimes with horses is to give them less to eat.  So dont having so much to burn, they dont have the same energy.  But I havent never heard anybody try it with cats.  Still, who knows?

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Im glad to hear about this marvellous update, Im glad my advice and informations worked well.  Tx!

About cutting down food of horses when they arent working.  I must add a nuance.  To cut down their energy and make them easier handled  is just a minor part of this maneuvre.   The more important  reason is the digestion system of horses works quite peculiarly.   In short, if they get lotsa of good food, but dont move and exercise enough (for example standing in a stable), they get easily severly sick.  They get severe inflammation in the body.  Muscles in the back get locked.   Even the hooves gets deformed if they survive this inflammation...

So this is the main reason they cut down food of resting horses....   And avoid to give them any extras even as treats, save perhaps just a few pieces of seed  or an apple.