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Hello! First and foremost I apologize if I am posting this in the wrong section (first time posting!)
I am a foster parent for our local shelter. Right now we have a mother cat named Doodle (I'd estimate her to be about a year and a half old) and 3 kittens (about 3-4 weeks now) that she is taking care of. The kittens' mother had passed away and Doodle had just finished nursing her litter of 6 so the shelter decided to put them in a home together to see if Doodle would care for them until they are able to go back to the shelter to get ready to find homes. We also have my 2 male cats (both almost 2 years old and both neutered) as well as a male 5 week old kitten we rescued about a week ago.
I am fairly certain that Doodle has just gone into heat. The past 2 days she has been VERY overly affectionate to not only us, but our two fixed males and has been yowling almost non stop. Normally I would juat wait it out, however I am concerned about 2 things:
1) As I have never owned an unfixed female- should I be concerned about the kittens she is looking after? I had debated on temporarily locking her in our spare bedroom, but would putting the kittens in there as well be safe or would is make the situation worse? Should I just temporarily seperate them since the kittens ARE eatting wet food and nursing less?
2) One of my male cats has become very stressed out since she went into heat (before this he, Doodle and the kittens were getting along great). He constantly hides, has become very skittish, will not eat unless I feed him seperate from Doodle (he is still ok with my other male being nearby), and is constantly running from Doodle as she keeps trying to 'love on him'. It has also caused him to start spraying, something he has NEVER done until now.
Any ideas on how to handle this? I plan to call our shelter, but they are unfortunately closed today. Any advice is very appreciated!
I am a foster parent for our local shelter. Right now we have a mother cat named Doodle (I'd estimate her to be about a year and a half old) and 3 kittens (about 3-4 weeks now) that she is taking care of. The kittens' mother had passed away and Doodle had just finished nursing her litter of 6 so the shelter decided to put them in a home together to see if Doodle would care for them until they are able to go back to the shelter to get ready to find homes. We also have my 2 male cats (both almost 2 years old and both neutered) as well as a male 5 week old kitten we rescued about a week ago.
I am fairly certain that Doodle has just gone into heat. The past 2 days she has been VERY overly affectionate to not only us, but our two fixed males and has been yowling almost non stop. Normally I would juat wait it out, however I am concerned about 2 things:
1) As I have never owned an unfixed female- should I be concerned about the kittens she is looking after? I had debated on temporarily locking her in our spare bedroom, but would putting the kittens in there as well be safe or would is make the situation worse? Should I just temporarily seperate them since the kittens ARE eatting wet food and nursing less?
2) One of my male cats has become very stressed out since she went into heat (before this he, Doodle and the kittens were getting along great). He constantly hides, has become very skittish, will not eat unless I feed him seperate from Doodle (he is still ok with my other male being nearby), and is constantly running from Doodle as she keeps trying to 'love on him'. It has also caused him to start spraying, something he has NEVER done until now.
Any ideas on how to handle this? I plan to call our shelter, but they are unfortunately closed today. Any advice is very appreciated!