Concerned about feral kittens!

[slefkowitz]

I had been feeding a couple of ferals when a friend offered me a havahart trap as I had noticed one looked very pregnant. I caught the male first and went about setting up an appointment to get him neutered (which happened today!). The problem is after I caught him the female who looked pregnant disappeared for a day or two. She reappeared looking a lot thinner but still had some belly weight on Saturday. Today I caught a cat who looks a lot like her but really doesn't seem to have any of the belly weight at all. I searched for hours around our property but couldn't find any kittens. I even brought my dog out to sniff around. She is very comfortable with the male so I think it's the same cat but now I'm very worried about her potential kittens. What should I do?

 

[louann jude]

This is just me but I would release her and if she had the kittens she should go to them. You could follow at a distance and see. If not you can always retrap her. 

 

[catwoman707]

No way you're going to re-trap her unless you get a hold of a drop trap.

It takes many years for females to forget getting trapped, males are not quite as hard. 

If you can look at her nipples you can tell if she has started nursing or not.

If she did have babies, it takes no time at all for them to starve to death/freeze to death.

So hopefully she is a different cat.

The prego cat must have witnessed her pal getting trapped and was scared away.

When searching for babies, even brand new born have an instinct to remain silent when they hear a human or animal around, to find babies there has to be absolutely no talking or human sounds AT ALL.

The light sound of walking makes them think it's their mom coming and will start to cry, that's how you can find them.

 

[slefkowitz]

She's not being very cooperative on letting me see her nipples. She's hunched and won't move. I feel like the cats stuck close to this huge over grown bush in my yard. I went crawling though to see if I could find any kittens but no luck. I did find a big hole underneath it that might be from an old groundhog. Is it possible at all that she would have put the kittens in the hole? I tried to shine my flashlight in but the hole curves and I couldn't really see much. 

 

[catwoman707]

I doubt it.

They're usually in thick bush. Deep in there too.

Mom does that for hiding from predators who like to eat babies.

 

[slefkowitz]

Oh also I forgot to add when I saw her on Saturday looking a little thinner there was an entirely new cat with her. I have been feeding the two ferals for a while and never seen another cat. But when she reappeared Saturday this new cat appeared with her. Is it possible this cat would have seen her trapped and moved the babies if there were any? 

 

[catwoman707]

Weeell...that's pretty doubtful.

I'm thinking she is not the prego one, she would have been producing milk and it would be fairly easy to spot.

You said she doesn't have any belly weight at all, and even if she had them but abandoned them, which is very unlikely too, she would still not have her girly figure back already.

I think/hope you have another who should get spayed asap.

Keep an eye out for the prego mom.