Ok, let me just describe the situation.
We have two females, both about 1 year old. For both, it's their first litter. The one gave birth about 2 weeks ago, 3 kittens, everything ok.
The other female gave birth yesterday at night, 4 kittens.
But she is not nursing the kittens respective shows very nervous/anxious behaviour.
After the birth, she looks and acts normal and also eats, but is at times breathing VERY FAST (hyperventilating), so first suspected that there is a problem like a stuck other kitten or stuck placenta. But then there is no evidence for this. It is possible that she is hyperventilating simply from nervousness/stress. YES WE WILL GO THE VET TODAY to see what is going on there.
What happens, we put HER kittens in nice boxes in the middle bed room or closet, but she doesn't go into the box to nurse them. Instead, she moves them to places like under the bed...and SHOCK, today in the morning I found the 4 kittens in our shopping trolley..where I can't even remotely manage how she managed this since the shopping trolley stands upright.
But this is not the problem! We know that cats often move their litter! If she moved the kittens under the bed, and would attend to them, this would be ok.
But she doesn't!
She moves the kittens and then wants to leave the room, she doesn't nurse them, even if the kittens scream their head off.
Obviously we have the OTHER mother now nursing them (she is now nursing two litters), without the other female we would be in big trouble.
(The new mama does all that stupid stuff like moving kittens to odd places, it was the OTHER mama who grabbed the kittens again, put them in the box and actually nursed them! If I let the actual mama in the room now, I know she'd just grab the babies and put them under the bed again, and then nothing)
It is obvious that "something is wrong" with the second mama, right now she is sleeping/resting on my desk again but still breathing fast. And we guess it is this that something is "wrong" with her that she is also not nursing the kittens.
As for the other mama, she is VERY exhausted/tired right now as it seems from having to do the two jobs...and just a minute or so ago she threw up some foam. so she doesn't seem perfectly well either. I just let her out of the nursing room, she is resting in the bathroom now, very tired.
* Stress galore right now, since we constantly have to move the cat from one litter to the other to make sure that both are fed. The REAL mother we cant let to her kittens right now since I know she's just moving them but not nursing.
Any advice is appreciated, also in how to best give kitten replacement milk which we hope will get from the vet later today. It is sort of a pain with the syringe.
We have two females, both about 1 year old. For both, it's their first litter. The one gave birth about 2 weeks ago, 3 kittens, everything ok.
The other female gave birth yesterday at night, 4 kittens.
But she is not nursing the kittens respective shows very nervous/anxious behaviour.
After the birth, she looks and acts normal and also eats, but is at times breathing VERY FAST (hyperventilating), so first suspected that there is a problem like a stuck other kitten or stuck placenta. But then there is no evidence for this. It is possible that she is hyperventilating simply from nervousness/stress. YES WE WILL GO THE VET TODAY to see what is going on there.
What happens, we put HER kittens in nice boxes in the middle bed room or closet, but she doesn't go into the box to nurse them. Instead, she moves them to places like under the bed...and SHOCK, today in the morning I found the 4 kittens in our shopping trolley..where I can't even remotely manage how she managed this since the shopping trolley stands upright.
But this is not the problem! We know that cats often move their litter! If she moved the kittens under the bed, and would attend to them, this would be ok.
But she doesn't!
She moves the kittens and then wants to leave the room, she doesn't nurse them, even if the kittens scream their head off.
Obviously we have the OTHER mother now nursing them (she is now nursing two litters), without the other female we would be in big trouble.
(The new mama does all that stupid stuff like moving kittens to odd places, it was the OTHER mama who grabbed the kittens again, put them in the box and actually nursed them! If I let the actual mama in the room now, I know she'd just grab the babies and put them under the bed again, and then nothing)
It is obvious that "something is wrong" with the second mama, right now she is sleeping/resting on my desk again but still breathing fast. And we guess it is this that something is "wrong" with her that she is also not nursing the kittens.
As for the other mama, she is VERY exhausted/tired right now as it seems from having to do the two jobs...and just a minute or so ago she threw up some foam. so she doesn't seem perfectly well either. I just let her out of the nursing room, she is resting in the bathroom now, very tired.
* Stress galore right now, since we constantly have to move the cat from one litter to the other to make sure that both are fed. The REAL mother we cant let to her kittens right now since I know she's just moving them but not nursing.
Any advice is appreciated, also in how to best give kitten replacement milk which we hope will get from the vet later today. It is sort of a pain with the syringe.
