Our last foster cat - pregnant mama in labor and on her way to us!

So the foster kitty we are picking up today was way more pregnant than originally thought.... she is in labor now!  I will be picking her up in about 45 minutes.   I have the "birthing area" all set up in our bedroom closet.   Since we don't know this cat I think it will be difficult to handle her and the kits anytime soon.  I have her in a large closet area, there is a space heater (removed from the birth area by a shelf, but it's working great, it's warm in there!) , an air purifier up on a shelf to help circulate the air, a small light source (but her area is mostly dark.   In a puppy pen there is a birthing box, litter box, filtered water, and we and dry kitten food.  

Is there anything else I need?   I'm excited, this will be the first cat birth I have seen since I was about 5 years old.   Any advice welcome.

Birthing Suite:


Other kitties extremely perturbed at the redecoration of our bedroom!:

You sound very prepared! Will the other cats stay away from her area once you bring her in today? She will be in no mood for visitors.

You'll want to pick up some KMR (kitten milk replacer) to have on hand. Preferably by PetAg, GNC, or Royal Canin, and get a can of the powdered. Also a 1 or 2 mL syringe in case a kitten needs supplementing for any reason. Mom can drink a dish a day, and the kittens will drink it when weaning.

Update later please!

The birthing/isolation area is in our bedroom closet so we can give mama kitty some peace and quiet as well as keeping her separated from the other cats for quarantine. It's close enough to check on her often but separated from the rest of the house by a door.

KMR is at the house and the feeding syringes, etc. will come later today. I will make sure to mix up some milk for mama kitty after I get home.

Mama kitty (we're calling her Moira) is only 6 months old. Very young for a first time queen. We are hoping for good mothering instincts and a small litter.

It reminds me of when I had my first child. My mom said over and over "babies having babies"

I hope it is a small litter as well. She must be do traumatized fromor all of this change.

Good luck! And keep us posted!

Well we got her home and into her birthing suite with lots of food and a bowl of KMR. No kittens yet and no obvious signs of distress. The shelter said they were seeing discharge and I saw a little but I doubt she will go into birthing labor until she gets settled here.

lisac said:

The birthing/isolation area is in our bedroom closet so we can give mama kitty some peace and quiet as well as keeping her separated from the other cats for quarantine. It's close enough to check on her often but separated from the rest of the house by a door.

KMR is at the house and the feeding syringes, etc. will come later today. I will make sure to mix up some milk for mama kitty after I get home.

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I hope you mean KMR when you say milk for mamma kitty.  Some cats do manage cow milk, but many dont.  And whom wants to experiment with a high preg / nursing mom you dont know??  But goats milk is OK and  useful, both for mom and for kittens.   Or plain youghurt is OK too.  These two are also nice natural sources of extra calcium later on.

Be sure she has also plain water.    IF she would get diarrhea or be visibly dehydrated, give some type of pedialyte instead.  Not that it seems necessary at this moment, but others reads these threads, and get tips.

lisac said:

Well we got her home and into her birthing suite with lots of food and a bowl of KMR. No kittens yet and no obvious signs of distress. The shelter said they were seeing discharge and I saw a little but I doubt she will go into birthing labor until she gets settled here.

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Good it was an alarmist rapport you got, she wasnt in FULL delivery during the move.  Even if the delivery will come very soon - as you say, probably when she has settled some, and realizes its OK, as safe as it can be for the moment.    Cats have some ability to wait with delivery if necessary.

Moira is a very sweet kitty who seems to want lots of attention. Poor girl has been in a shelter for weeks and then gets transported hours away on the day she goes into labor.

She has, in true cat style, snubbed the birthing suite and has deemed the other end of the closet her current favorite spot. She also helpfully flung a large amount of litter out of the litter box and onto the floor. I put a couple of extra boxes in the closet as well as some receiving blankets in case she decides to nest on the floor.

She had a small amount of bloody show about an hour ago so I expect there will be some kittens by the end of the weekend.

Pretty frustrated with the rescue org we foster for, though. We asked for some guidance in case there is an emergency situation with the birth and were told we had to contact the rescue director and she would decide whether or not there was an emergency and what to do. So it looks like they may be hanging us out to dry financially (again) if something goes wrong during the birth. This is why Moira is our final foster cat... we don't feel that the rescue provides adequate medical care for the cats and we've already paid hundreds of dollars for health care for two other foster cats in the last week. Fingers crossed for an uneventful delivery and a healthy mama and kittens.

Bless you! I'll pray for a healthy delivery and healthy kittens!

So she went into labor yesterday morning and has had active discharge for approx 24-26 hours now. She came from a shelter so we have very little health history. Her anus is incredibly swollen and occasionally she passes rock-hard chunks of feces. Despite this she doesn't seem to be in distress and in fact she just fell asleep on one of the blankets we have on the floor.

She won't seem to settle in any one place but relocates every so often. She's not interested in any of the boxes we have in here. She likes it better when someone is in here with her which is unfortunate because it is a closet and it is over 85 degrees in here with the heater going.

Does everything sound normal? I'm worried because we have no good information and no local vet has seen this cat. The rescue will not pay for an emergency visit but my husband and I will get her proper treatment if necessary.

lisac said:

So she went into labor yesterday morning and has had active discharge for approx 24-26 hours now. She came from a shelter so we have very little health history. Her anus is incredibly swollen and occasionally she passes rock-hard chunks of feces. Despite this she doesn't seem to be in distress and in fact she just fell asleep on one of the blankets we have on the floor.

She won't seem to settle in any one place but relocates every so often. She's not interested in any of the boxes we have in here. She likes it better when someone is in here with her which is unfortunate because it is a closet and it is over 85 degrees in here with the heater going.

Does everything sound normal? I'm worried because we have no good information and no local vet has seen this cat. The rescue will not pay for an emergency visit but my husband and I will get her proper treatment if necessary.

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They are no automatos,  so the variation is big.   85 degrees sounds much, can you take down the heater now and then?  75 is more than enough.

Her being friendly is in part an instinct to please herself in.  She knows she need help and people thinking positive about her.  Which do help you much, of course.

Its swell she wants one of you to be togehter with her.  Very apparently she is no semi-ferale, she is surely a thrown out home girl, whom got dumped when she become pregnant.   It happens in the world of "humans" its sorrowfully common enough in the world of cat owners and cats.

StefanZ thanks. My husband and I have often marveled during our fostering experience at what kind of awful person could treat cats so poorly and/or surrender such wonderful cats to kill shelters. It really bothers us on a lot of levels. I really wish the rescue provided more support for adequate medical care. We love fostering but refuse to allow cats to go without proper medical care and we can't afford to pay vet bills for every cat we foster.

I agree that 85 is too warm. How is she doing now?

She seems the same and the temp is around 77 degrees now. She is not happy with her closet accommodations and tries to escape every time we open the door. I think she wants to roam around. I also think moving her while in labor was probably a bad idea. She seems stressed.

Hopefully she will begin to relax in her new environment, and go into labor soon. I know this is stressful for her and you!

It's like watching a child suffer from illness. It tugs on my heartstrings and makes me worry. She is also so young and tiny, I'm worried about potential complications.

I understand. Try not to blame yourself for anything. You are helping her! How does she seem when you spend time with her? More relaxed or more tense?

She definitely prefers us to be in there with her but it is a large closet and there is nowhere to sit. I was just in there for a few minutes to take down the puppy pen and put her food and litter in the middle of the room so it won't be far away from her chosen birth site. She seems to prefer the laundry baskets over the more enclosed birthing boxes, which is lucky for us because she and the kittens will be easier to access and we can just switch laundry baskets when the linens need cleaning.

While I was in there she ate some dry food, some fresh wet food, and had a lot of fresh water. I figure when she settles on a spot we can move out the non-preferred birth location options and bring in a camp chair or two.

That sounds like a good idea!

Got the camp chairs in the closet and we are taking shifts so someone is in here with her all the time. She's still passing chunks of hard poo, which may be part of what is delaying labor. Mammals tend to like to clear their bowels before birth.

She is restless and roams back and forth between the two laundry baskets and the litter box. My husband just left to pick up some goat's milk and pumpkin and when he returns I will make what I call "kitten slop", which is a purée of high calorie dry kitten food, quality wet kitten food, Nutri-Cal paste, and normally 2nd stage KMR but I am going to add goat's milk for the higher fat content and canned pumpkin to help with the constipation.

She's now momentarily settled in one of the birthing boxes next to my chair. Maybe a short form of nesting?