Rescue cat having trouble with newborn kittens

Hi there, I'm new to this site and already have a question I am seeking some suggestions or answers to. I run a small cat rescue in Alberta, Canada. I have been hand raising orphan kittens for 6 years but have never had a queen with kittens (dont' know how I avoided that!). This is in regards to a cat I rescued 1 week ago who is maybe 6 months old herself, she's quite young. Yesterday Buffy had her kittens, 7 of them. I have her isolated from our other cats in a large cattery. She ate one kitten, and overnight appears to have suffocated 2 more by laying on top of them. I have been checking her every few hours and every time I go in there I find a kitten stuck underneath her...she seems to have no sense of where the kittens are or what they are doing. This kitten was slightly cold so I warmed him up and he then started nursing and is fine now, she licked him and seemed unbothered. I am quite nervous about leaving these kittens with her, she is still a baby herself and I wish I could have rescued her sooner and had her spayed but being so close to her due date we felt it was best to let her have the kittens. My question is should I let her keep her babies and keep on trying but risk losing some because of her immaturity? Or should I try to take them away from her(which I think would be awful for her)? I would sleep in there with her but I am 6 months pregnant myself and can barely handle sleeping in my own bed. One other thing, this cat had never had human contact before me...she does however love my attention already, purring and rubbing herself all over me and allowing me to handle her babies and help them nurse from her. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, I look forward to reading and posting more in this forum!

Well, thank you for your suggestion. I went to check on Buffy and her 4 kittens , 2 hours after posting the original message and they all seemed ok, so I waited another 2 hours just incase she really was ok and I wish i hadn't because she had pushed one of the kittens away and it was already gone. It didn't have any superficial wounds so my thought here is that it was weak and mom knew better than me and jus let it be. The problem here is on top of the fact that she is so young, her kittens are a result of a colony of 5 siblings who before we were contacted to rescue, had already started to imbreed. So these kittens are imbred and to be honest, are not very vigorous at all. It takes work for me to even supplement them with some KMR every few hours, and I've hand raised probably 20-30 a year out here. I'm starting to wonder if this may be a genetic issue rather than a queen who doesn't know what she is doing.

Oh I hope she's not killing them, she seems so comfortable when I am in there with her. She lays perfectly still for her kittens to nurse. It is 6:30pm, I am going to prepare a kitten nest in my bedroom and until I go to bed I am going to check on her like every hour the least and if I must I will take them all away and care for them overnight to see what happens. Maybe I should leave her with 1 if I do take them?

After my 3am check on mom everything still looked good, the 3 remaining kittens were sleeping and were nice and warm to the touch so I didn't bother them much more. I went back in to check at 6:30am and they were all still sleeping so to make sure they were ok I put them on mom. 2 started searching for a nipple right away, and one just kept dropping off, not even trying. To make a long story short, he was dehydrated and very very weak with a poor response to any stimulation. I am currently nursing him inside but he is not progressing as I had hoped after 2 hours. I took a look at the recommended website and it is a great source of info, I also have a entire book specifically on handraising orphans that is wonderful. I will keep trying here and hope for the best. My vet opens in an hour and I may stop by there to get another suggestion if needed.

TROUBLE! I just went to check on mom and kitties when I saw they were covered in blood, I panicked and took them away but upon further checking I saw it was coming from mom. She has a lot of bleeding from her vagina, is this normal? I am trying to call the vet but they are still closed. She is also feral and only allows me to touch her, I don't think I can even transport her to the vet.

UPDATE:
Just got back from the vet. I successfully caught her and she is obviously ill enough to let the vet fully examine her. She had a temp of 40.6 and the vet said her uterus was very large and she may have retained placenta in there and an obvious infection. She gave her a shot of oxytocin to stimulate her to expell the nasty stuff in there, as well as 300cc of sub-Q fluids and an antibiotic injection. She sent her home with me and I will continue the fluid therapy and antibiotics, this vet is on call all weekend if I am to have further problems. The kittens have been taken away from her and the vet showed me how to safely tube feed them as they are slightly weak. Turns out moms milk wasn't very sufficient and she showed lack of interest in her kittens anyways. So for now I am mommy, oh and one more thing...the vet believes these kittens are premature. Possibly momma gave birth too soon due to stress from being feral and then indoor, but most of the kittens were big enough to survive. Let's hope for the best for all of them, I am off to check on mom and then feed babies. I'll let you all know how it goes and thanks for the help!

Here is a picture of one of the little babies. I hope this works and is not too large, if it is I will delete it and try again. They seem to be getting stronger and momma cat doesn't seem to be getting any worse.

The kittens are nice and warm, temp inside the nesting box I made them is exactly as it should be plus I have a ticking clock to resemble mom's heartbeat and a stuffed toy for them to snuggle up to. This pic was taken right after I fed and cleaned baby. I have done this so many times it's fun, I hope my efforts this time pay off! Thanks so much everyone! Momma just ate 1/4 can of chicken and rice food from the vet so it's looking good!

Hi everyone and thanks for the good wishes! Well, I've seen the vet every single day since this started. The kittens got little to no antibodies from moms milk in the beginning so they are really struggling. Being so premature and without an immune system is very difficult. The vet came over last night and we made an even better "nest" for the kittens, one with perfect humidity along with temperature. However her visit was not the happiest one as all 3 babies have respiratory infections. One went from pretty good to horrible in 2 hours and my vet felt he should be put to sleep. I was very sad by this. The 2 remaining are ok. They have a little bit of runny noses and I hear an occasional mini-sneeze. The vet gave me the tiniest dose of meds for them plus I am putting a tiny bit of yogurt in the tube-feeding mixture to help their tummys since they are on meds. They sure are fighters, everyone who has seen them is surprised they are still alive because they are so small, 2 ounces each. I have been watching them so closely, and my vet is so amazing too. She really enforces that I am doing everything I can for these little ones and it sure helps to know that. So lets all hope these babies can make it, they sure are precious...but aren't they all. Momma cat is perfectly fine now, no signs of illness but her milk never did drop so it's not even worth giving her these kittens back. She was too young anyways and having them prematurely caused a lack of hormone which stimulates her mothering instincts. It's too bad. I'll let you all know if anything else happens, thanks for the support!

Momma cat will be spayed once her course of antibiotics is finished, she's already booked for surgery, it will be this coming Monday. I will check out the preemie thread as well, thanks for that. My 2 kittens so far today look good, the little black and white boy goes bonkers as soon as I put my hand in there, he crawls all over it and sucks it...so sweet! Take care everyone!

UPDATE! Well for anyone who may still check this thread I just wanted to give a quick update. Momma cat is now spayed and recovered and is such an amazing cat. She is definately one of the success stories you hear from time to time about taming feral cats, which is wonderful because now I can find her a great indoor home. As for her 2 kittens that are left I am still nursing them, they are both on the bottle and are doing pretty well. They are still so very tiny, they weigh about 100 grams(2.5 ounces approx) each at 2 weeks of age, which is usually what they weigh at birth but they are healthy and strong and vocal so the vet thinks they are just behind on growth and nothing serious is wrong. So I am keeping positive for these 2 babies. Well, as I can see from all the threads, kitten season is now here and in full effect. Goodluck everyone!