mom moving her kittens

My female, Roxi, had four kittens two weeks ago. She had them in my bedroom closet. Earlier today my husband found that she had moved them into the basement between a box and the washing machine. We moved the kittens back up to the bedroom closet and changed the bedding. She again tried to move the kittens, but we stopped her and returned the kitten to the closet. We then put a litter box into the room, she already had food and water, and closed the bedroom door. The bedroom is not a high traffic area and is only used for sleeping, it is not overly warm or too cold. We do have a two year old son, but we have not let him know that there are kittens in the house and will not let him know untill the kittens are older. So he is not the problem, and my husband and I check on her a couple times a day to make sure she has food and water and the kittens are healthy, but we always pet her and give her more attention than the babies. Everything has been fine up untill now. Is there anything we can do to make her not want to move the babies? Should we relent and let her move them to the damp and chilly basement? Could there be another reason besides natural instinct that makes her want to move them? Are we doing the right thing by not letting her move them down there? I really do not want her to move her kittens down there as it is dirty, cold, damp,and I have had previous experiences with her having her kittens down there and they tend to be wild, as there is so much clutter that getting them used to us is hard because we can never get to them. I would appreciate any advice on this issue! Thank you.

buddylove..welcome to TCS. I believe it is very normal for a cat to want to move her kittens...not sure what the reasoning is though so you will need to wait for a more experienced cat person to post. I did read that you cat had had kittens previously and I was just curious why she wasn't spayed. There are so many health benefits to having your cat spayed and now there are many more low cost options out there. Anyways...I'm sure that you will get some other answers soon.

Katie

Something likely startled her or scared her and made her unsure of where she should place her family to keep them safe. Perhaps the little one ran in and scared her, or she heard a noise or?

Give her a nice dark place for her kittens, one that is warm and quiet and she should be fine. Yes her litterpan and food should be in the same room not close to each other though for health hazard reasons

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The mother moving them is a natural instinct, it's instilled in them because in the wild thats what they do because the birth place's scent attracts predators, so shortly after there born she will move them to a safer spot. My daughter brought home a book that explained this. Im haveing the same problem with my cat also. Good Luck! Jill

This is very common for the mother cat to do this. My female Pixie Bob moved her kittens every 3 or 4 days, usually just to a different spot in the room.

Hissy and Jillbrya are both correct - evidently there was something in the room that didn't smell/look/sound/feel right to Mom cat and she felt her babies were somehow threatened. Although I will say it is a bit odd to have a Mom cat be moving 4 week old babies. They are pretty much able to get around on their own at that age and should already be introduced to canned kitten food and litter. Confine them with Mom in the room by shutting the door so they do not have the run of the house. You can let Mom out individually so she can have some "me" time, but let the kittens stay in the room - do they have plenty of space to run and jump and play? That's what they need right now. They are learning how to control their body movements and running, jumping and playing with each other and with Mom is important to their development.

Also, it needs to be said that TNR1 is correct too. Unless your mom cat is a pedigreed cat participating in an ethical breeding program, she really would be better off spayed as soon as you can.

Best of luck,

~gf~

Just a quick story from a friend about her momcat and moving kittens:

This mothercat was a very protective mother and as long as the kittens were very young, she was fine. When the kittens started to get out of the box and want to roam she got very worried and kept bringing them back into the box. She would get frantic, though, as she struggled to keep up with the kittens who, of course, wanted to explore. My friend came home one day to find the box empty and the mother cat sitting there looking quite content. She looked all over for the kittens and couldn't find them, then she heard some mewing from up high. The mother cat had taken all of the kittens and put them on the top shelf in the closet where they were too afraid to move off because of the height and they were all sitting there looking down over the edge and mewing:-)! Momcat was content until my friend once more returned the kittens to ground level and closed the closet door:-).

Kathryn

I WISH it was ethical to shelve human children to keep them safe and under control!

Originally Posted by Ranger

I WISH it was ethical to shelve human children to keep them safe and under control!

Click to expand...

My sister-in-law put up a circle of X-Pen in her living room and puts the three kids in there ... *grin*

When we had cats that had litters-we had a litter to two in our bedroom closet-we moved the mom and kittens to a prepared area in the basement where they would be secluded but the kittens would be moved back upstairs-thats 3 flights of stairs!! One of these same cats had a litter right on the basement floor-one kitten didn't survive. At 4 weeks you are handling them? Are you taking them out of sight from the mother?? At this age I don't know why she is moving them either as we socializing them, introducing to food. Good luck

Thats pretty funny! LOL