Two days ago we went and caught a momma cat and her 4 babies at a private owned beach and cottage. The babies had clearly never seen a person before in their life, spitting at me as I picked them up from their nest of leaves. I estimate that they are 2.5-3 weeks old, as their teeth are just starting to come in.
Momma looked in great shape for being a stay and having four 3 week old babies. So it took us about 40 minutes to lure her out from one of the cottages, by grabing her babies and rubbing them vigorously, making them cry out, she came out to see if they were all right and we threw a towel on her and got her into a carrier. She had to have been someones cat at one point, because it only took her 24 hours to go from hissing and growling, to rubbing all over our legs.
Anyhow.. yesterday she felt comfortable enough for me to rub her all over.. and she was rolling all over the place. And I have come to the conclusion that she is indeed pregnant again. She should be skinny by now, with the kittens nursing off her and such.
So we figure, that she will deliver around the time the kittens are 8-9 weeks old.
But my question is, is it safe to keep the kittens with her the full 8 weeks, or should we seperate them when they are weaned?.. I just don't want the kittens sucking up all the milk that she needs for the newborns.
I will see if I can foster her for her second birth, but I don't know if I will be able to or not. She currently is on a mixture of kitten foods (science Diet Kitten, Hills P/D, Spa Select Kitten food, Nutro Kitten Food, Maxcat Kitten food, and Royal Canin Kitten (we haven't mixed any of the kitten chow people donate since the kittens have been coming down with feline panleuk - Everybody has been vaccianted now, and no kitten deaths for 2 weeks.. so hopefully everything will be alright now. So we want to feed the better food, not the cheapo stuff) so it's mostly top of the line stuff.
Momma looked in great shape for being a stay and having four 3 week old babies. So it took us about 40 minutes to lure her out from one of the cottages, by grabing her babies and rubbing them vigorously, making them cry out, she came out to see if they were all right and we threw a towel on her and got her into a carrier. She had to have been someones cat at one point, because it only took her 24 hours to go from hissing and growling, to rubbing all over our legs.
Anyhow.. yesterday she felt comfortable enough for me to rub her all over.. and she was rolling all over the place. And I have come to the conclusion that she is indeed pregnant again. She should be skinny by now, with the kittens nursing off her and such.
So we figure, that she will deliver around the time the kittens are 8-9 weeks old.
But my question is, is it safe to keep the kittens with her the full 8 weeks, or should we seperate them when they are weaned?.. I just don't want the kittens sucking up all the milk that she needs for the newborns.
I will see if I can foster her for her second birth, but I don't know if I will be able to or not. She currently is on a mixture of kitten foods (science Diet Kitten, Hills P/D, Spa Select Kitten food, Nutro Kitten Food, Maxcat Kitten food, and Royal Canin Kitten (we haven't mixed any of the kitten chow people donate since the kittens have been coming down with feline panleuk - Everybody has been vaccianted now, and no kitten deaths for 2 weeks.. so hopefully everything will be alright now. So we want to feed the better food, not the cheapo stuff) so it's mostly top of the line stuff.
