New Kittens all stuck together! Help!

A stray we've been caring for for a couple of months had kittens in our garage. My wife moved all 7 of them off the cement and into a large dog crate with blankets in it. It is two days now and the kittens are all stuck together near their bellies and one appears to be dead. We don't know what to do! Please help!

These babies need to be seen by a Vet immediately!

Please take a dry towel, toss it in your dryer. While it is cycling, call a emergency vet near you, or your vet and ask them to meet you at the clinic. Take the warmed towel, bundle these babies carefully inside and rush them to the vet. Do not delay. If where you are it is extremely cold, keep them bundled next to your chest, preferably near your heart. if you can get mom into a carrier, take her as well- Please hurry, time is of the essence.

Well, we ended up taking the mother and all the kittens to a no-kill animal shelter with a full medical staff. We couldn't afford what the emergency clinic wanted just to walk in the door-let alone treatment. We were a little sad, because we had to surrender the animals in order for them to treat them. We will have first dibs on adopting the mother back, when the kittens are old enough to be away from her. We will do this and at least she will be fixed with all her shots. They had never seen anything like that before where the kittens umbilical cords were stuck to each other, not just dried up but with blood still in them Probably due to the young mother's inexperience. Thanks for your prompt responses. Bob

You definitely did the right thing!

Hope the mama and the kittens survive.

I am glad you got help immediately. Thank you for caring enough to seek help and to want to adopt the mother back. She is fortunate she ran into you in her life-

I am so happy you updated us and I am happy you got them the care that they needed!!! I have been waiting to read this!!!

Thank you!

i wanted to thank you for getting help immidiately and getting the kittens and mom to a safe heaven. you did a great job!

that is very unusal and its sad they made you turn over the animals atleast they got seen and i hear you about how much it costs.

The sad thing is once we turned over the momma and litter, we relinquished all are rights to them and they won't even give us any information. This is especially upsetting to my wife. They made us feel like we are unfit animal owners and refused to get them medical help at a regular vet. We have three dogs and a cat in the house already, and this was just a stray we were nice enough to feed and let sleep in our garage during the winter. We would have eventually gotten her fixed but she was in such sad shape she looked like a walking skeleton. We wanted her to put a little meat on her bones and trust us better before we dragged her to a vet. She looks 100% better than a couple of months ago and the kittens looked great except for the dead one that was in the middle of them all. She did clean them and nurse them. I'll let everyone know if we find out anything new. Glad I stumbled onto this site. Bob

I am sorry you had to surrender them to the shelter to get them seen. I find that cruel of them but at least they are being taken care of. Poor things! I am glad they are letting you adopt the mom back too.

Thank you for caring for this kitty and her babies, Bob. I'm so sorry you had to relinquish all rights in the process of seeking help for them. Thank you for your update, I certainly hope they will allow you to know how the babies are doing soon.

I'm sorry that you had to give up all rights to the cat and kittens. Maybe you can try to adopt one? I think you did a fine job taking care of the Cat, not many people would have went the extra mile to help the kittens also. You have a great Heart!

My cat had kittens this morning and this happened to her too!!

My cat of about 1 year had kittens this morning, something seemed to be wrong because she kept coming out of the room and coming by me and we could hear them crying a lot too all day long, when I'd look at them though they seemed fine and so did she. I kept bringing her back in the room and trying to comfort her and reassuring her, I was thinking she was just scared since shes a first time mother and so young. Finally I ended up taking a nap in the room to help her calm down. When I woke up the kittens were out in the open all bundled together. I went over and looked at them and they were all stuck together by the umbillical cord, we don't have the money to bring them to a vet at all. I called several vets and finally one gave me free advice over the phone to cut 1/2 an inch away from the umbillical cord. I did call around to all the 24 hour vets and tried to see if the vets would take them for me just to ensure the proper care, they all said no! (NO ROOM). So finally, I ended up getting the courage and cutting one free (it was totally fine). The other two seemed really stuck together, there was even some big furry ball thing- I just did as they said and cut 1/2 inch away from the belly. The last one though had umbillical cord also wrapped around its ankle!! This is the part that took hours, it was very tightly wrapped around there, I could barley get it. Finally with sanitized toe nail clippers I cut it free in the only area I knew wasn't foot. Everything was all so swollen it made it extremely difficult. I tried unwrapping it as much as I could and than let her go. The foot is still very swollen but it seems to be going down. They are the most quiet and content they've been since being born, feeding and sleeping normally. Hopefully the foot will continue to go down and unwrap by itself. I do think there is still some cord around it, but maybe it's loser now, she was some what walking on it even so I think it will be okay. Wow- what a day! I'm a firm believer in never touching the kittens until 6 weeks old etc. but I did what I knew needed to be done. Thank God it seems like it will be working out. Hopefully this helps someone else too. PS please try and call around to see if the vets will take all of them (including mother for feeding purposes) first before doing this, also only do this if you truly can't afford a vet and it's the last resort.

Cirystail said:

 I'm a firm believer in never touching the kittens until 6 weeks old etc. but I did what I knew needed to be done.

PS please try and call around to see if the vets will take all of them 

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Kittens can (and should) be handled daily, no need at all to wait 6 weeks and you won't get very friendly kittens waiting so long.

PS this is also a very old thead.

Absolutely.  The sensitive period for kittens is 2-7 weeks, so if you wait until 6 weeks you have missed most of it, and most of what you can make of it.  They also learn from watching their mother, so if she is friendly towards you they will learn that to a degree.

http://www.fabcats.org/behaviour/understanding/kitten.html

Cirystail said:

 I'm a firm believer in never touching the kittens until 6 weeks old etc.

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 What is your theory behind this CirysTail?  

I know some think the mom can abandon the kittens if human did touched them.  And this is largery a myth.  It may be true for wild rabbits and deer kids, but not for cats. Not even for feral cats, as many rescuers can witness.

And as the others already said, you miss the period of easily socializing them. Which is important to use esp if the mom IS semiferal.

With home cats I imagine it may be OK anyway...

Tx a lot of sharing your experience with these intangled kittens.  Jolly well done to help them out!!!

Lets hope the kitten with this swullen leg will be OK.

Welcome to our Forums!

Good luck!

ps.   If you wish, you can start an own tread about your mom and kittens. Copy and paste from your letter here if you dont want to rewrite.

I

missymotus said:

Kittens can (and should) be handled daily, no need at all to wait 6 weeks and you won't get very friendly kittens waiting so long.

PS this is also a very old thead.

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Right!

If you wait until their 6 weeks old, you'll end up with some ferral kittens on your hands.

I would take them inside and try putting them in warm water to disolve whatever is holding them together and call a Vet.