Pregnant Cat Questions

Hello Everybody, first off I'd like to say thankyou for such a great site, I've been reading through for a few weeks now and have found you all helpful and informative, without you I'd be totally lost on what to do with my pregnant cat.
Anyway I have a couple of questions but first off I'll give you a quick heads up, we got our cat Nim about a year ago when she was only six weeks old, she came from a young girl who had three cats and three litters of kittens which totalled at over thirteen in a one bedroom flat.I now realise from reading through the site that this was far too young but luckily she doesn't seem to have suffered any ill effects. Despite our best efforts she managed to escape the house during her first heat by opening the window herself, two days later she returned and sure enough within three weeks her nipples had become swollen and pink. From the dates that I've worked out this means she is due to give birth early next week, she is a very small cat and we suspect she is only having a small litter, although her belly is quite hard and round she is not particularly huge. Well now that you've read my waffling I shall get to the questions.
Should I be feeling the babies moving a lot, although we feel the occasional kick there doesn't seem to be masses of wriggling in there?
Is now a good time to confine her to one room? she is kept strictly indoors but has free roam of the house but we have another cat and three young children so I'm thinking for her safety perhaps now is the time to keep her in one room only.
Should she be eating just kitten food now? I read on the site that you should feed kitten food as opposed to adult cat food so we've been mixing a 1 part high quality dry kitten food in with 1 part of her usual food, should I now switch to just kitten food.
I hope I'm not asking really silly questions but I'm getting worried now that the birth is getting closer and I want to give my cat the best care possible.
And on a side note she will definately be getting spayed as soon as the kittens are weaned.

those questions are not silly at all. i'm not one of the more experianced members but i will try to help as best i can

1. you can start to feel the babies kick about 2 weeks before she will deliver. depending on how many are in there, the kicking could be lighter or softer. in Kitty she only had 2 and one kicked all the time and one only rarely kicked at all.

2. since you said she is due next week i would start puting litle nesting areas where you want her to have her babiesat around the house so she might find one she wants. i'm not quite sure about confining her. i would say yes she should be confined. (maybe one of the more experianced could answer this one a little better ).

3. they should have kitten food in her diet. i did the same thing you do. my cat has had a history of urinary tract problems and we feed her as special kind of food so we just mixed them both together. so i assume thats ok (correct me if i'm wrong)

i'm not the best but i hoped that helped. good luck!!!

Welcome to TCS....given that your girl escaped in order to become pregnant, I would definately confine her in a room where she has no ability to get out (where she cannot open a window or a get through a door to the outdoors). She will need a nesting box, quality kitten food and her litterbox all in that same room. There are definate advantages to confining a pregnant cat: 1. mom will have less area to "move" the kittens 2. as the kittens get older, the fact that mom is right there will assist with them learning to eat solid food as well as use a litterbox 3. a cat will go back into heat once she has had her kittens and confining her ensures that she will not get out and become pregnant again.

Katie

Thankyou, we shall definately confine her to the one room then, we have set up two boxes in there for her so she has more than one option when it comes to choosing. We also repaired the door to that room so that there's no way she can escape, oh and we have locked the windows as well, that wily minx shan't fool us a second time.

Originally Posted by Morrigan

Thankyou, we shall definately confine her to the one room then, we have set up two boxes in there for her so she has more than one option when it comes to choosing. We also repaired the door to that room so that there's no way she can escape, oh and we have locked the windows as well, that wily minx shan't fool us a second time.

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Good to know that you have secured the room that she will be kept in. Definately keep us updated.

Katie

Thankyou so much for the advice so far but I have another question for you. Yesterday I was rubbing Nims tummy and could feel soft spongy lumps behind her nipples, particularly behind the ones closest to her hind legs. Am I correct in guessing that this is her milk coming in?
We weren't expecting kittens until the middle of next week at the earliest but I have been reading that milk tends to come in quite close to the onset of labour, we weren't 100% sure of the date on which she conceived so perhaps we are a little out, with the milk in should I expect Nim to deliver fairly soon?

In some cats, milk begins to come in at 10 days to 2 weeks before delivery. I would keep a watch on her -- you are now officially on kitten watch! Sending lots of good baby vibes!

Oh gosh, just when I felt sure that Nim may still have a way to go yet she's just had some very delightful bloody mucus leaking from her rear end. I'd noticed she hasn't been so vocal towards me today but she has still followed me round, she hasn't eaten so much today either but has just drunk a load of water from her bowl. She's also nesting like crazy, I never realised until now how many nooks and crannys there are in my room.
So if there's anyone out there who knows how long before she's likely to deliver, I know it's fairly different with each cat but are we talking hours or days?
Thankyou

Sounds close to me! Keep us posted. I would say days to hours... but I'm not an expert.

Well she's actually settled in the nest that we made for her...hurrah. Kittens are moving like crazy inside her, they feel like they're trying to push their way out of the side of her stomach. Every now and then her stomach feels really hard but I'm not sure if thats contractions or the kittens I'm feeling.

I would guess contractions at this point in the game. From the time I first saw the mucous-y discharge from Ruby to the time the first kitten was delivered was about 15 minutes.

Ok we have more of the icky mucus leaking and I'm thinking contractions too now, a ridge comes up around her stomach and then her whole stomach feels abit like a ribcage if that makes any sense, lots of ridges banded around her belly, I timed the last two at about seven minutes apart lasting somewhere between a minute and two each.

sounds like contractions! WOHOOOO GL!

Well it has been a long and sleepless night. Nims contractions continued from 8pm through to 2am, everytime I tried to get into bed and get some sleep she mewed and climbed all over me so as of yet I haven't actually slept.
At 2am her waters broke and at 4.15am the first baby was born, unfortunately already dead, Nim did her best licking it to revive it and then I had a go giving it a good rub but to no avail.
Baby number 2 came about 30 minutes later and thankfully squealed as soon as the head was out. Mum and baby are both doing great now, after a well earned meal and a change of bedding both are snuggled up contentedly.

Originally Posted by Morrigan

Well it has been a long and sleepless night. Nims contractions continued from 8pm through to 2am, everytime I tried to get into bed and get some sleep she mewed and climbed all over me so as of yet I haven't actually slept.
At 2am her waters broke and at 4.15am the first baby was born, unfortunately already dead, Nim did her best licking it to revive it and then I had a go giving it a good rub but to no avail.
Baby number 2 came about 30 minutes later and thankfully squealed as soon as the head was out. Mum and baby are both doing great now, after a well earned meal and a change of bedding both are snuggled up contentedly.

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Good to hear that everything went well.

Katie