Urgent... found 6, 2 days old kittens.. how can I help??

What a great update!!

Mom was clearly an owned cat before, who has been on her own for some time so she is fearful of people due to a lack of regular interactions, but is doing very well with you!

As long as the kittens are social with you, it's good to delay taking them just yet.

Just know too that if mom leaves and goes outside, she will likely get prego again soon, so she will need to be spayed soon.

Normally once I separate mom from kids, she is given about 10 days to dry up then goes to be fixed.

Perhaps once she's fixed she will be allowed to continue to be your "other" cats, or maybe your outside cat and given food and water to keep her healthy.

Her ribs should have some padding over them, not just thin skin and easy to feel, so she might need a bit more food.

Thanks for the update. Such beautiful kittens!

I agree with catwoman, now is the time to get Mum spayed before she has another litter. I've had feral mother cats spayed when their kittens are at about the same age your are. They still feed and take care of their kittens afterwards.

Hope you can bring them all indoors soon. If the kittens are in a house and being handled every day they'll be much easier to re-home than outdoor cats. Much safer too.



Keep us posted.

Hi Folks,

Past few days have been a little crazy.. with my wife falling sick, I spent a lot of time in the hospital. But I did manage to spend at least 1 hour everyday with the kittens and the mother..


There is one thing odd about the mothers behaviour towards me.. quite clearly she is now very happy to see me.. her talk goes straight up the moment she sees me and starts to meow with the slow eyes shutting move..while I wake towards her.. she also hisses in between her meows and the tail remains pointing up..

She is even allowing me touch her and pick her up.. I place her on my lap and leave her there and she walks away calmly.. she is completely comfortable with me playing with her kittens.. I am unable to understand the hissing though..

Also my house cat has been acting strange lately.. does not come up to me .. only comes when she wants to be fed and when I go to her she starts to avoid and when I persist hisses at me.. does she know that something is going around with other cats and me? I cannot let this mistrust develop in her .. thoughts??

sunnykew

Cats have a fantastic sense of smell, better than some dogs. so they can easily tell when you have been around other cats.

The hissing is likely because you have the scent of your house cat on you. She smells another cat and is hissing because she wants to warn any other cats to stay away from her and her babies.

Your house cat may be avoiding you for the same reason, you have the scent of the momma cat and her kittens on you. Cats are very territorial and if your cat has been an only cat for a while, she may not be too happy to keep smelling other cats on you.

Do you plan on keeping the momma cat (because she seems tame)? If so, there are many ways you can safely introduce her to your house cat so they can slowly get used to each other.

Raina21 said:

@SunnyKew

Cats have a fantastic sense of smell, better than some dogs. so they can easily tell when you have been around other cats.

The hissing is likely because you have the scent of your house cat on you. She smells another cat and is hissing because she wants to warn any other cats to stay away from her and her babies.

Your house cat may be avoiding you for the same reason, you have the scent of the momma cat and her kittens on you. Cats are very territorial and if your cat has been an only cat for a while, she may not be too happy to keep smelling other cats on you.

Do you plan on keeping the momma cat (because she seems tame)? If so, there are many ways you can safely introduce her to your house cat so they can slowly get used to each other.

Click to expand...

This is true.

Introducing your girl to this momma girl will need to be very slow though, 2 girls are tougher, and adding her protective mama instincts will make it even slower.

Even after 11 years of my girls living together, they are not friends, never will be, but they do get to a point where they at least accept and tolerate each other's presence.

I say this meaning even the most impossible girl/girl residents will work out no matter how much it looks like it won't.

Patience is key, and you might even get lucky with a smoother co-existence!

Strange strange strange...

This morning I cannot find any of the kittens and the mother.. Looks like she has moved them out of the closet..

It was only last night that I was sitting with the kittens and the mother too was comfortably sitting having no objection with me working with the kittens..

I did notice that when I was putting food for her she would call out to the kittens and let the kittens eat it instead.. she herself was not eating.. this happened two days in a row.

That's when I met my neighbour who said he had been feeding her as well as she was going through the garbage all the time at his place..

Could it possible that she moved the kittens right next to her food source? Also this worries me as this neighbour ( just three doors away) has a young dog who is very feisty.. and this person has no experience with cats..

At a time when I put up the kittens for adoption they are gone and I am unable to find them..

Oh no! How scary!

I don't understand why she would have moved them, perhaps she went out and they followed her.

Dangerous........

Her normal feeding times with you be sure to continue to put food out for her, hopefully she will come with kids tagging along behind her.

Then I would say to close it off so they can't leave again.

That's where the concern is since the neighbour has been feeding her she was not eating the food I was keeping and was keeping the kittens eat them.. I don't know if they followed her or she moved them but this is a great worry now..

I thought so much of closing the gap so that they cannot leave but my heart said otherwise..

I will check with the neighbour if in case she moved them in his basement or something.. will need to be watchful for the next few days.. this time even if I see one kitten I will make sure to bring it inside

Might ask the neighbor to not feed her for a day or two so she will come back to you.

I did that last night.. so let's see how things go..I am hoping I am able to locate them

Feral mothers regularly move their litters around. It's partly a way of avoiding parasites, a nest can get full of fleas and ticks before long. It's also a way of avoiding predators. Even if there are no predators her instincts will tell her to move periodically.

She won't have gone far. Keep leaving food out for her at the regular time in case she comes back. The feral kittens I fed started to come to my house without Mum by the time they were 3 months old.

Try roasting a chicken with your windows open. That usually attracts all the cats in the neighborhood.

So I did find all of them, in the basement of a near by empty house. I managed to pick up the kittens and bring them back in our basement and have locked them up. now its the mother, after a little while I saw her in my basement too and I went near she was not happy about it. She is now running away from me. All the progress we made I am not sure what happened. When I tried to pick up one of the kittens in front of her she again hissed with displeasure

Anyways, the kittens are secure in the closet, now its the mother who needs to be persuaded to get in the closet. I know the space is too small, but I am thinking in this direction as the kittens might still need the mother.

Suggestions?

Great, glad to hear you found them all.

I think the best thing to do is keep the mother and the kittens indoors for now. The kittens need a lot of human contact so they will be ready for new homes. Even if the mother isn't going to be a "pet" I think you need to get her spayed soon. If she's allowed to wander around she'll be pregnant again before you know it.

Is there another room in the house that you can turn into the cat's safe room? Can you block the exits and keep them all in the closet? If the closet seems to be the best place to keep them you might be lucky enough to shut the door on the mother once she goes in.

Do you still have the humane trap you used to TNR the other cats you helped? It is possible to trap the mother using one of her kittens as "bait". You need to place the kitten in a pet carrier with the door closed. Place the carrier up against the back of the trap. Cover the carrier with a blanket so that the only way the mother can get to her kitten is to walk into the trap. Once she is trapped you will need to be really careful that she doesn't get out again or you will need to take her to be spayed right away. 

I think the kittens are about 2 months old now, is that right? If so the mother cat will probably be in heat again, which could be why she is starting to wander.

I have managed to locked the mother too in the closet..it was a painstakingly slow process but I know that's how it is with cats.. the problem is that when I tried to open the closet to check on the after some time she tried run the away and I literally had to close the door and be a little forceful to keep her inside.. after that I have not tried to open the door at all.. the kittens are safe with their mom..

There is a small space on the closet door through which I can put the food but what about water and the litter.. if I try to open the closet door I am afraid she will try to run away again and I might not be able to catch her again..

I am working on a homemade trap which I plan to use to catch her..

Don't know how that will work...

I am afraid that if leave the gap open she will get out and we might miss the opportunity to trap her..

I can place the carrier right in front of the closet gap so that she walks straight in but then how do I close that door..

Really confused..

Good! You're doing a great job.

I suggest you call your vet ASAP and make an appointment to have her spayed. If she tries to run out of the closet door the moment it is open you need to have a carrier or a trap ready for her to run into. Could you get a large, flat piece of board that's about the same size as the closet door? If you cut a flap into the bottom of the board you could open the door a few centimeters, slide the board behind the door, open the door wider, put your carrier up against the flap you've cut and then slide the flap up so she'll run out of the hole and into the carrier.

Another way you could do it is to get a large net ready so that as she runs out of the door she'll run into the net. A mosquito net would work. You'll probably need a couple of people to help with this.

The cat litter will just have to wait for a day or two.

As for water, how about sliding a flat dish into the closet and then squirting water from a squeezy bottle? 

Could you post a picture of the closet so we can get a better idea of what you're dealing with?

Here are the pictures..
The first one is the full door.. you can see that I closed the bottom left as that's where the hole is for her to get in and out..

The second is the narrow space between the door and the floor from where I can slide food in.. not sure about water though

Place the carrier on the floor directly in front of the hole in the door. Remove the small board that is blocking the hole and she will walk into the carrier. You will have to be very fast closing the carrier door. And you may need someone els to help you with this. Just in case.

Or as soon as she walks into the carrier, place the small board you are using to cover the hole in the closet door in fromt of the carrier door, blocking her way out. Hold the board tightly against the opening of the carrier. Have someone help you be ready to close the carrier door. And then quickly remove the boad and close the carrier door as soon as possible.

@Raina21  's advice sounds like the best way to do it. Either that or make a trap that has an opening the same size as the hole in the door and a door on the trap that you can slide down as soon as she goes in. The trap I use has a clear, perspex end so cats think they can walk right through it. She might not come out if it looks like she's going to be shut in a carrier, but if you can fool her into thinking she can escape it will work.

If you get a shallow tray could you slide it under the door to use as a water dish?

Any luck with a spay appointment yet?

Spaying appointment is not a challenge. We can get it done the same day here..

I managed to trap all 5 kittens using a similar method.. almost had the mother in and when I try to shut the door she got half stuck and started screaming.. she eventually managed to get back in the closet and now won't come out at all.. I even opened the closet door and she was sitting in the corner and looking at me.. I kept some food and closed it again.. don't know whether she will come out again

The kittens are safe in the carrier.. I got to leave for work now.. don't know if I should leave the situation as is

Is there no way that you can close the room itself off so she can't leave?

If the room itself is closed off she can be allowed to come out, then take your trap and tie open the door, and only put food in the back of the trap. She will get used to going in it then you can set the door and trap her when she is ready for her spay appt.

If you are not, the the trap or a carrier at the hole is the way to go.

You can't try closing the door like normal, you will need the carrier set right up to the hole when you expose it, put your foot on the carrier so it doesn't move, then slide up what blocks between the hole and the carrier, she will go in but immediately try to dart out, so I suggest only raising the wood a small amt so she has to squeeze under it, trapping her in the carrier, then of course right away drop the wood again.

Now the trick is to get the door shut without escape.

I have done this many times, but with what's called a fork, which I'm sure you don't have, anything will work if it's thin, too thick of wood that blocks her in will not allow the carrier door to get close to shuttinb, it will have to be moved to get the door shut, leaving time, and cats are SO fast, for her to dart out.

So I suggest something thin and sturdy, maybe a cookie sheet. Even better if it's something like that but without a lip around it.

Flat means it can slide right in front of the wood/carrier, then move the wood, holding the sheet snugly, all the while your foot is keeping the carrier from moving.

So now you have the carrier and holding a cookie sheet over the door.

Tilt the carrier on it's end, flip the door so it's nearly shut, slide the sheet out as you close the door and secure it.

Then cover with a towel, she won't be happy.

Kids are old enough that they can eat on their own, so no worries there.