Hi! A stray mama cat gave birth to a litter of six in my house. We left our door open one hot day and she just walked in and gave birth in the laundry room lol. My boyfriend and I are cat people so we don’t mind taking care of mama and her babies. In fact I prefer it because it’ll make it easier to find them home (or keep em lol).
But there were some issues. Initially, after giving birth, the mama was very attentive and protective but after about a week she just kind of stopped taking care of them. She was healthy, milk was flowing (we checked her daily), and she would sniff and acknowledge them occasionally, she just wouldn’t feed them.
We didn’t want to give up on the Mama so we would usually hold her down for feeding and then I would clean the babies and stimulate them and all that. But then, she would start taking kittens and hiding them around the house. We found them behind the washer/dryer, two of them ended up under the couch, and one was under the sink. I don’t know what she was doing or why she moved them, but at this point I was just kind of fed up, so I decided to just start taking care of them myself.
I used KMR formula and fed them, usually every 3 hours or so. I’d stimulate their little butts, groom them, kept them wrapped up in an electric blanket, but it’s 6 kittens. After about a week of this I was kind of overwhelmed, and the kittens were doing great, but they just would never settle down, would meow constantly, etc etc.
So yesterday, out of frustration, I locked her in a box with them and kept her there. I checked on them after 10 minutes and she was laying with them, grooming them, feeding them. Since then, she has been taking care of them, and is as attentive as she was in the beginning.
It seems to be going well, and they’re about 3 weeks old now. I was wondering when I can stop worrying about them… in my experience, newborn kittens can be healthy in the morning and then get sick and die by the evening for seemingly no reason. At what point do they stop being so fragile.
I mean, I worry about everything. I wake up at night to check on them and make sure they’re not cold, and I was really worried the KMR would give them diarrhea or constipate them. I still kind of worry about her rolling over and crushing one :/
Any advice or words of reassurance would be super appreciated!