IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS

4-9-2021

Kitten Season is Upon Us!

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By Kim Kay of Angels Among Us Pet Rescue

For the next few months, shelters and rescues will be drowning in kittens, pregnant & nursing moms, and tiny orphans. If you're in rescue - whether you focus on dogs or cats - you are probably the person in your neighborhood and/or workplace that EVERYONE comes to with found animals. If you don't have a ton of cat experience and ESPECIALLY if you do have dog experience, I want to share a few important things about cats that are different from dogs in regards to all these babies being born!

Orphan Kittens (Bottle Babies)

The vast majority of orphan kittens are actually "orphaned" by well-meaning people. They see babies alone somewhere and assume they have been abandoned. They likely haven't been. If their mom is feral (and if they're outside, she probably is), it is absolutely normal for her to leave the babies to find food for herself. She may also leave because you're there and she's terrified of you. If you stay there and watch for her, she won't come back until you leave.

If the babies are content and sleeping or if they're crying because you woke them up, they're fine. I've had people say "But they're newborns and it's been 2 days and I've never seen mama." Reality: If mama really hadn't been sneaking around you to feed them, newborns wouldn't survive two days. So mama is super scared but if you leave them be, she'll take care of them. Ideally, if you can keep an eye out from a window, you'll see her eventually. Or if not, leave them for a couple of hours and go back and check again that they still seem OK. You can do this at periodic intervals until you're sure they're being fed. But know that mama might move them at some point because of it. (Which also means they're fine.)

If kittens are lethargic (don't start squirming and/or crying when you touch them) or they are dehydrated (which you can determine by pinching the back of their necks and seeing if the skin falls back into place or is "sticky") then something may have happened to mama. But the majority of the time, they should be left with mama until at least 4 weeks if at all possible. (Then they can be collected, socialized, and placed into homes.)

Pregnant Mom Cats

If you foster pregnant dog moms, you may have seen the occasional labor and delivery complications. You may be used to having a team of help at delivery. Cats are GREAT at giving birth. Complications during cat labor and delivery are extremely rare. However, complications are MORE likely to be caused by stressing out mom. If you or several people are there for the birth, she may effectively "hold them in" until she feels it's safe. The best thing to do is leave her be and come back later and see how cute the babies are. She doesn't need human help. She's a pro.

Nursing Mom Cats

While when dogs have giant litters of 10 or more, there is sometimes talk of supplementing if mom can't feed all of the babies effectively. Again, this is rare in cats. If mom is healthy, producing milk, and babies are latching on, you can do more damage than good by supplementing. You risk them aspirating and overfeeding (which by the way, is also dangerous for kittens) because you can't calculate what they are getting from mom. Nor, if kittens seem healthy, active, and seem to be growing and mom is attentive, do you need to weigh them daily or do too much with them at all for the first couple of weeks.

First, again, stressing mom is counterproductive. And two, when we talk about weighing bottle babies of any species, it's imperative that you weigh at exactly the same time each day. If you weigh them one day right after they eat and you weigh them the next day before they eat, you are going to get different weights and worry needlessly. When a kitten is nursing, you have no idea about the exact intake at any given time so weights will vary. Obviously, if there is a major loss (which usually, you can see), this indicates a problem, but a little bit is generally more about when they last ate than anything else.

Kittens

Rescues NEED kitten fosters. [If you want some extra cuteness in your life, please visit Paw Patch’s Rescue Page and contact a local rescue for more info www.pawpatchclinic.com/rescue-corner.
 

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1150 Upper Hembree Rd

Alpharetta, GA 30076

Got questions? Email us at Frontdesk@pawpatchclinic.com

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~*~ Treating Paws with a Heart ~*~