Hello. This is my first post here. I wish I had found your site sooner so that I could have been more prepared. I guess I should give you some background information then ask my questions. I thank you ahead of time for reading and helping if you can.
About 6-7 weeks ago a skinny calico cat decided to live on my front porch. My adult son works 2nd shift and he would see her every night when he got home from work. He named her Claire and started feeding her my Yorkie's dog food. She was not friendly towards me at all and would hiss and bat at me if she felt cornered by me. The funny thing is my son could pet her and she also stared greeting my husband when he pulled up from work. My husband had sympathy for her and bought a big bag of cat food for her. Well she never left after that. Whenever any of us would pull up she would either be on the steps or under the grill. She started following my husband into the house occasionally, and would just help herself to my dogs food and water and then want back out. My husband I talked about it and decided we should get her spayed and vaccinations if she was going to stay. He did not want an inside cat, but he built her a wooden cat house for the porch and she moved in right away. Since my son was the one she allowed the most contact from I asked him to take her to the spay clinic. I made an appt for her and my son was going to take her. He called me at work the day of her appt and told me he called and cancelled because he was certain she was pregnant.
So the long story is he couldn't bring himself to abort her kittens. I don't think I would have either. I thought she was just gaining weight from eating so much. She ate more than I thought possible. She was always hungry. We had no idea how far along she was except her nipples were pink. I was a little distracted because I was about to have major surgery which I had on June 24 th. Well yesterday Claire comes in when my husband opened the door and she jumped up in my lap!! This was not normal behavior for her. I figured she must be ready to have her kittens. I wanted to fix her a nesting box in our exercise room cause I can shut her in there and she would be on the first floor. I can't go up and down the stairs multiple times a day as I am recovering.. Well Claire had other ideas. Before I could get anything set up for her she had disappeared in the house. I am looking all over for her and she had gone upstairs and pushed open the door to a spare bedroom and hopped inside a big box that had clothes for the Goodwill in it. She was in active labor and I didn't think she would let me move her, but this was not a good spot as I could not see anything that was going on. My son was out of town for the weekend and I was so worried. I had my husband bring another box up and against my better judgement I reached in and lifted her out of the box. She wouldn't go in the other box and ended up having kitten 1 right in the middle of the room. She did great! She ate the placenta and cleaned the kitten up. I was able to convince her to move into the other box, but it is a little small. She ended up having 3 kittens, but one was born dead. I am not sure why it died as it looked completely normal. She is being a great mom to the 2 kittens she has. She has decided I am her new best friend and she has excepted petting from me and has let me check her bum for discharge.
I quickly realized Claire is flea infested. I feel like a horrible caretaker for not thinking about this possibility sooner. All I can say is she never let me touch her before and I never really noticed her scratching. I googled last night about safe flea treatment for a nursing mother and sent my husband out to buy advantage 2 and capstar. I have given her a treatment and crushed up the capstar on some can food which she ate up right away. I read some forum posts that said if you treat the mom any fleas that get on the kittens will die too? I am afraid to Handel the kittens too much as I don't want to stress her out. I would like to move her downstairs though and I am wondering when it would be safe to do this? There was about 8 hours in between her having the first kitten and the 2nd, then 2 hours until she had the 3rd that was dead. I don't think she has any more just based on how relaxed she seems now. I hardly slept last night. She is staying with the kittens except to eat and use the litter box. I will post some photos a little later as soon as I figure out how. Any advice on things I should be doing or looking out for? I am so amazed at her acceptance of me just all of a sudden. I have been trying so hard to win her over this past month. Thank you.
About 6-7 weeks ago a skinny calico cat decided to live on my front porch. My adult son works 2nd shift and he would see her every night when he got home from work. He named her Claire and started feeding her my Yorkie's dog food. She was not friendly towards me at all and would hiss and bat at me if she felt cornered by me. The funny thing is my son could pet her and she also stared greeting my husband when he pulled up from work. My husband had sympathy for her and bought a big bag of cat food for her. Well she never left after that. Whenever any of us would pull up she would either be on the steps or under the grill. She started following my husband into the house occasionally, and would just help herself to my dogs food and water and then want back out. My husband I talked about it and decided we should get her spayed and vaccinations if she was going to stay. He did not want an inside cat, but he built her a wooden cat house for the porch and she moved in right away. Since my son was the one she allowed the most contact from I asked him to take her to the spay clinic. I made an appt for her and my son was going to take her. He called me at work the day of her appt and told me he called and cancelled because he was certain she was pregnant.
So the long story is he couldn't bring himself to abort her kittens. I don't think I would have either. I thought she was just gaining weight from eating so much. She ate more than I thought possible. She was always hungry. We had no idea how far along she was except her nipples were pink. I was a little distracted because I was about to have major surgery which I had on June 24 th. Well yesterday Claire comes in when my husband opened the door and she jumped up in my lap!! This was not normal behavior for her. I figured she must be ready to have her kittens. I wanted to fix her a nesting box in our exercise room cause I can shut her in there and she would be on the first floor. I can't go up and down the stairs multiple times a day as I am recovering.. Well Claire had other ideas. Before I could get anything set up for her she had disappeared in the house. I am looking all over for her and she had gone upstairs and pushed open the door to a spare bedroom and hopped inside a big box that had clothes for the Goodwill in it. She was in active labor and I didn't think she would let me move her, but this was not a good spot as I could not see anything that was going on. My son was out of town for the weekend and I was so worried. I had my husband bring another box up and against my better judgement I reached in and lifted her out of the box. She wouldn't go in the other box and ended up having kitten 1 right in the middle of the room. She did great! She ate the placenta and cleaned the kitten up. I was able to convince her to move into the other box, but it is a little small. She ended up having 3 kittens, but one was born dead. I am not sure why it died as it looked completely normal. She is being a great mom to the 2 kittens she has. She has decided I am her new best friend and she has excepted petting from me and has let me check her bum for discharge.
I quickly realized Claire is flea infested. I feel like a horrible caretaker for not thinking about this possibility sooner. All I can say is she never let me touch her before and I never really noticed her scratching. I googled last night about safe flea treatment for a nursing mother and sent my husband out to buy advantage 2 and capstar. I have given her a treatment and crushed up the capstar on some can food which she ate up right away. I read some forum posts that said if you treat the mom any fleas that get on the kittens will die too? I am afraid to Handel the kittens too much as I don't want to stress her out. I would like to move her downstairs though and I am wondering when it would be safe to do this? There was about 8 hours in between her having the first kitten and the 2nd, then 2 hours until she had the 3rd that was dead. I don't think she has any more just based on how relaxed she seems now. I hardly slept last night. She is staying with the kittens except to eat and use the litter box. I will post some photos a little later as soon as I figure out how. Any advice on things I should be doing or looking out for? I am so amazed at her acceptance of me just all of a sudden. I have been trying so hard to win her over this past month. Thank you.
