I’m having kittens about having kittens
Today I assisted a cat through her first birth. I want to remember every detail, so here goes.
(Warning: There is a tiny amount of blood shown in some photos, and if you look very closely you might see an umbilical cord stump.)
A few weeks ago someone reached out to me on FaceBook. She has two young Ragdoll cats, a bonded brother and sister, and had a surprise pregnancy. Was it safe for the mum to deliver her brother’s baby?
The answer is, “Definitely”. Some breeders deliberately breed relatives when looking for certain traits. It makes the babies more likely to have certain genetic diseases, but it’s perfectly safe for the mum.
We talked a lot, and ultimately I am looking after both adult Ragdolls (hereafter called ‘Mama’ and ‘Papa’) until the kittens are weaned. Papa is there to make Mama feel as relaxed as possible, not least because they only moved to my house a week and a half ago.
The owner is devoted to her cats. They are healthy and vaccinated and will return to her when the kittens are weaned. I’ll hold on to the kittens until they’re all adopted. Two of the owner’s friends already want to adopt a kitten each.
We took the cats to Cooinda Vet in Marulan (much cheaper than Canberra even though it’s an hour and a half drive each way) to get Papa desexed and Mama checked. The ultrasound showed “at least two” babies due within two weeks.
The owner doesn’t want photos of Mama and Papa online, but it’s fine for me to share kitten photos. Ragdolls are one of the bigger breeds of cats. They are very fluffy with a white or cream body and dark points (like a Siamese). They have amazing blue eyes, and are famously chill, often relaxing utterly (like a rag doll) when picked up. Here is a Ragdoll photo from one of my interactive books:
Papa is extremely friendly and will quickly approach new people (or cats). He is a LOT like Jack Black, one of my foster kittens (pictured below). They’re already starting to play together. Mama is also quite used to Jack. (Zipper is grudgingly tolerant and then goes outside to get away. Zoom is terrified, having never met a cat bigger than herself. Jodie is terrified but bravely challenging herself to get a little closer to them each time they are allowed in the same space.)
Anyway!
I set up three possible nesting boxes for Mama, but one is definitely superior. Apart from anything else, it’s set up inside a large mesh carrier (the kind for a small dog) which means in an emergency I could just zip it up and take the whole family to the vet.
Sometimes Mama would go in there, wash herself a little, and then wander out. Unsurprisingly, both she and Papa spent a lot of their first few days hidden behind a table. Change is scary. But honestly they both emerged relatively quickly, and were both snuggly with me, including purring and rolling over for belly rubs. My other family members have all patted Papa many times, and the kids have each patted Mama.
On 20 October (Monday) I noticed Mama was producing milk, confirming the vet’s estimate of her due date. I felt the kittens kick a couple of times during the week, and noticed that she liked to burrow into the nest (which is sort of bad because I’d carefully layered it including waterproof layers, layers for warmth for the newborns, and layers that could easily be removed if they got blood on them).
On Tuesday I saw her stomach twitch, which was either kitten movement or pre-labor contractions.
On Wednesday, she and Papa were grooming each other (another pre-labor sign). At 8pm, she had burrowed into the nest and was sitting on the plastic carrier base with my carefully-arranged covers over her. I wasn’t sure, but it seemed like it might be time for The Kittening at last. Here are most of the messages I sent to my friend, including the times I sent them (and the typos):
So I went to bed about 2am and slept until 7am, when I needed to get up and get my human kids ready for school. I bought more food and litter (and a toy for Jack’s BFF Jodie), came home and slept until 1pm. Of course I fed the various cats, scooped litter, and checked on Mama again. She had dug out an entire layer of the nesting box, rearranged the rest, and was chilling out elsewhere. I left the heater on and the AC off.
At 1pm I found her in the nesting box (under the nice blankets) again, and I went and had my lunch. I did some much-needed cleaning (Mama likes to throw a solid cup of litter out of the box overnight, which would normally be a pre-labor sign but apparently she does that all the time). I heard two meows around 2pm and wondered if it was really proper pre-labor this time.
At 2:20pm I went back into the cat room. Papa was acting strangely and I heard another meow. Where was Mama?
She was hiding behind the table again, but coming out since I was there. Then I heard another meow… and realised it wasn’t Mama. Or Papa. It was coming from behind the table.
Papa and I raced to investigate. I don’t know which one of us knocked over the conveniently over-sized water bowl but it went all over us and the rug.
I frantically-but-extremely-carefully tossed everything piled up on the table onto the couch, and then saw the tiny damp BABY CAT behind the table on the bare, low-quality carpet.
EEP!
The rule is to always let the Mama give birth in the place of her choosing.
But.
There was a scattering of litter on the floor, and it’s not a warm place at all. And she liked the nesting box, didn’t she? Just not the way I arranged it?
I knew it wouldn’t be long until the next baby arrived, and I couldn’t bear the thought of it getting born on the floor. Who knows where that floor has been?
So I gently put Mama in the nesting box (on top of the covers even) and the baby next to her. I was so scrambled I didn’t even wear gloves, but I noticed Mama wasn’t fussed at all. She just lay comfortably on her side and washed her baby. And purred, especially when I patted her.
Now that the first baby was out, she didn’t feel the need to hide (and maybe it helped that I was there to protect her from danger? I dunno—some cats hate having humans there, and others love it. Mama was very clearly in the “love it” camp).
After all this time, I wasn’t ready! I needed to change the stinky litter! I needed warm water and clean rags! Where was my notepad? Did I need anything from the birthing kit? What about picking up the kids from school? And was the first baby kitten okay? I’d dimmed the lights and now I couldn’t SEE!!
Another baby came out, just like in the videos I watched to prepare for this birth. Mama seemed very comfortable and pleased with herself. Kittens are born 10-60 minutes apart, so after watching to see it was breathing I raced out to toss the litter, grab various things, and sort out the human kids. And to message the owner to tell her it was all happening. She was literally having an ultrasound at the time. Here’s a kitten next to Mama’s front paws.
And then I settled in for the rest of the birthing process. Clearly, Mama had read the instructions that tell birthing cats to lick off the amniotic sac so their kittens can breathe, and to chew through the cord and eat each placenta when it arrives. So I wouldn’t need the scissors, alcohol wipes, or unflavoured dental floss (to cut the cord), and I wouldn’t need to break open the amniotic sac or clear the kittens’ airways.
They were very wet despite getting a few good licks from Mama. I turned a second heater on, checking the two thermometers I’d placed in the room and sweating buckets myself from the heat. The owner asked if she should/could come over. Given that Mama was purring every time I patted her, I said an emphatic yet.
Another kitten came out. Excellent! Three kittens!
Papa approached with fascinated caution, sniffing the air and watching the magical cats that had appeared through some kind of hidden doorway that he had somehow never discovered. HOW DID THOSE THINGS GET IN HERE?!? He didn’t hiss or growl, but he backed away to watch from a safe distance. Some father cats will literally kill newborn kittens, but clearly that’s not his vibe. I’ll still supervise him a lot.
The owner arrived, making a big fuss over both adult cats and generally squeeing like a first-time grandmother should. And then suddenly Mama’s stomach started visibly pulsing as if she was going to throw up.
I knew what that meant by now, and said, “She’s having another one!”
She enough, moments later there was a fourth kitten! She washed it off and then lay down to wait for the placenta, which she ate like the rest. The kittens were trying to feed, and they were SO BAD at it. I mean sure, they’re blind and mostly deaf at this stage, and too weak to stand, but they kept sucking on Mama’s paws or her fur. More than once I tried to point one in the right direction. If anything that made it worse because they’d immediately hare off somewhere else. Still, I remembered a vivid story I was told when I was pregnant about the strong drive to nurse after birth (in humans) and I mostly just watched them flail about. It was probably building up their muscles or something useful like that.
Four kittens! Fantastic!
I made the owner go away because she’s pregnant herself and that room is HOT since kittens can;t thermoregulate. Plus of course I wanted them to myself. And to turn on a second heater because they were still wet.
At 4:18 I wrote to my animal welfare person.
At 6pm it was clear there were no more kittens (probably for the best!) and I decided it was time to weigh them. The problem with Ragdolls is that they all look extremely similar, especially at birth when they’re generally pure white. So I hatched a plan to lay them out on a towel and take a photo (to catch large-scale physical differences), then take a photo of each face as I weighed them, in case their faces look different in some particular way.
As soon as I moved the kittens they began meowing with the same force and volume that had been demonstrated to me when the first one had meowed so loud I’d heard it from the other end of the house and thought it was Mama. They also grabbed hold of the ground with their claws and began to crawl hard in the direction they thought was probably towards Mama.
Mama leapt into action immediately, grabbing one in her mouth and putting it back in the nesting box before I could start weighing them. Papa came up too, wondering what on earth was going on.
They’re like living dandelion seeds: soft and white and moving in a totally erratic way. I weighed one, swapped it for the one that had been rescued, and weighed that one—as Mama grabbed a third one. It was chaos! But I’m pretty sure I weighed all four in the end: 92g (Litten), 108g (Shinx), 120g (Luxray), and 128g (Zera).
Tim (my son) and I have been discussing names, and the theme for this litter is “Cat Pokemon”. So! The one on the left, the runt, is Litten. The middle top kitten has a tiny bit of colour, so it is Luxray (the Pokemon creature has black fur… this kitten will have a black face, tail, and paws when he grows a little). The one below Luxray is … Zeraora? Something like that. It’s the biggest. And on the right is Shinx.
Zera:
As you can tell, I once again broke the first rule of neonatal kitten fostering – I didn’t wear gloves. I had gloves ready to go but when I realised the first kitten was on the bare carpet and hastily moved them to the nesting box, I was too frantic to remember gloves until I’d already moved them. Mama didn’t seem fussed at all, so I figure that means I don’t have to wear gloves.
Sidebar: I really hate gloves. To me wearing gloves is as uncomfortable as picking up poo with my bare hands—clearly this is an Autism thing because it’s not super rational. I still do wear gloves when I need to (I took them on and off constantly when I worked in an Early Learning Centre), but in the moment I forgot.
I will need to consult my animal welfare person about whether it really is too late to bother wearing gloves. In all honesty, it also feels wrong to me to handle a newborn with plastic, especially when they need warmth so much. I suspect that kittens who were held skin-to-skin as neonates are probably more relaxed with humans than those who weren’t handled. But I also think only the owner and I should use our bare hands, because Mama already has our smell on her from much patting.
Cats co-parent with friends in the wild (even big cats have been known to sometimes dump their babies on a trusted human!) and I feel like mixing scents is part of that. But the #1 reason to wear gloves is so the mum doesn’t reject the babies. Which is why I’ve said here that if you’re not willing to feed the kittens every two hours, and stimulate their bowels every time, then you should wear gloves.
Anyway, here’s Litten, the runt:
Newborn kittens should weigh 50-150g, so that’s not a bad starting position. Like almost all runts of my acquaintance, Litten has an incredibly loud, piercing meow that she/he deploys without hesitation. I think she/he was born first. The smallest is always most at risk, so I’ll be watching Litten closely.
This is Luxray, aka “the brown one”. Hopefully they darken up soon because that hint of brown is essential for me to tell them apart (and to therefore know if one isn’t gaining weight properly).
And that means this one is Shinx. It looks like I’m strangling them but I’m just holding their head steady.
So that was 6pm. I popped in and out to make human dinner, and then pick up another heater, and then eat my own dinner. I was a bit worried about the kittens’ ability to nurse. They just didn’t seem able to get it, and I was unable to help. Maybe what they needed was some peace.
So, once dinner was all done I went back hoping to see some amazing nursing action. Papa and Mama both raced to meet me (or to make a bid for freedom) at the door. I was surprised as I expected Mama to stay in the nesting box unless she needed food, water, or litter.
By then my animal welfare person had asked some follow-up questions and advised that newborn kittens could get dehydrated very quickly. It was very clear that the babies had a pattern of rooting around for food and generally failing—sucking at fur, mum’s paws, each other, and one even sucked on their own foot—then going to sleep. If you’ve ever had a human baby, you know that feeding can tire them out before they’ve had enough. I wasn’t sure any of these kittens were getting any milk at all. Much like humans, cats sometimes don’t produce enough milk even IF the baby is doing everything right.
So.
I prepared some Womberoo cat milk (the best stuff in Australia for newborns) and syringe-fed each of the four babies. They all got the idea really quickly and gobbled it down… which was good, because Mama was concerned as I stole her babies again (which is good and healthy behaviour on her part). She approached and sniffed at the babies as I fed them. Then she basically went
…and started licking the spilled milk off their faces with more than maternal enthusiasm.
Once I’d fed the kids, I poured the leftovers into a dish for Mama, and she lapped it up with alacrity. That was my cue to put out dinner for her and Papa, which she ate immediately. Great.
It was clear from the enthusiasm and focus of the kittens that they were very hungry, so… I’ve been syringe-feeding them all night. 9pm, 11pm, 1am, 3am, 5am. It’s nearly 6am now and I’ll be feeding them again in an hour.
At least two have managed to latch beautifully since then, but I don’t think Litten has managed it even once. Poor little mite.
So the next few days are going to be rough for me.
When my first human baby was born, I got so tired I started losing touch with reality. At once stage I thought I was a baby. Another day, I briefly thought I was cleaning Lizzie’s face because she was a lawyer with an important court date. None of these incidents lasted more than a few seconds, but they’re obviously super dangerous. How am I going to go feeding kittens every two hours for probably at least three days? Well, it won’t be pretty. But for now I’m doing everything right: taking my meds; washing cat dishes ready for the morning, writing down things I need to remember; solving problems and being responsible. Hopefully nature works things out real soon, whether this feeding issue is caused by unco kittens or a lack of milk flow or both. I’m certainly proving my usefulness to the owner! Litten would probably have died by now without the supplemental feeds.
Wish me luck.
Did you think that was all of the night’s drama? Because it wasn’t.
At 1am I went into the room, deploying fancy footwork to avoid letting Papa out… and Mama wasn’t there.
Two kittens lay in the nesting box, completely alone. I carefully turned back some layers to try to find the other two, but they were nowhere to be seen. They weren’t in the other two nesting boxes either, or in Mama’s hidden corner behind the table.
I was mystified and starting to panic when I heard a meow that led me to the other side of the room. There, in a big plastic tub of soft toys, under a giant unicorn, was Mama Ragdoll looking very pleased with herself—and two of her four kittens.
Why there? Did she still need to burrow and the unicorn was her only option? Was there too much light on the nesting box? Was the nesting box area too hot for her elaborately furry self?
And WHY did she leave two kittens behind? Was it because the abandoned kittens were too bad at nursing and she decided to let them die so the other two had a better shot at life? Did she just forget about them? Did she want a change of bedding?
I cast aside the enormous unicorn (seriously, it’s bigger than a medium sized dog), carried the toy tub back over next to the nesting box, and hastily changed the bedding before moving Mama and the favoured pair of kittens back into the nesting box. Mama immediately got out and headed back for the bucket, but I tipped out the toys and she gave up.
I did the feed, patted Mama a lot, chucked the soft toys in the wash and disinfected the bucket. I also cut patches of fur from Shinx and Zera so I could reliably (ish) tell them all apart at last.
Mama seemed content again at 3am and 5am.
Best of all, when I weighed the kittens at 5am all four had gained weight. Weight is the best way to tell if a kitten is thriving, scraping by, or in danger of expiring. I THINK these lovely babies are going to make it.
Here’s my GoFundMe page, if you’d like to help!
Caring for Newborn Kittens
I have fostered exactly one newborn litter (along with their excellent and friendly mother) so I’m no expert. But I wanted to write down everything I learned in order to help myself next time I’m fostering tiny ones.
The first thing to know is that kittens under four weeks will probably die if they are separated from their mother, so don’t separate them! And, don’t touch them without gloves for that four weeks unless you’re willing to feed them every two hours, day and night, if the mother rejects them due to your smell, and to do mother-type things such as stimulating their butts to make them poo. (And they’ll still probably die.)
I won’t include details on caring for orphaned kittens under four weeks old, as I have no experience with that. Suffice it to say, it’s a very intense job.
Here’s a lovely video of the first 100 Days with some purebred kittens. It’s not particularly educational but it’s gorgeous.
Speaking of gorgeous, here’s Turtledove (“Turtle”) at three days and then again at three months. There’s a huge set of Turtle photos at the end of this post.
I was lucky to be fostering newborn kittens along with their extremely friendly and relaxed mother cat who was happy to have a fellow mammal helping with the child rearing. Cats are actually very social creatures, often ‘babysitting’ for one another.
Cats are very good at mothering, and to a large extent the best thing to do is simply leave them alone to get on with it.
When they’re pregnant, they could do with more food (Royal Canin has ‘Mother and Baby Mousse’ in tins with a pink label, which is also a great first food for the babies when they’re old enough) and a reliable supply of fresh water (at least two bowls, because sometimes one gets knocked over). They also need a nesting box—a safe, warm place to both give birth and to keep the kittens. A cardboard box with a towel (that can be washed and replaced with another towel) tends to work well (keeping the sides about 15cm high so the kittens don’t fall out). Most cats want privacy when giving birth, although some want company. It’s good to monitor the birth in case something goes wrong. Here’s a guide on pregnancy and birth. Obviously, a pregnant cat should have a prenatal check-up at the vet too.
This is Dove with the elderly couple who were already feeding her, and who officially adopted her when her kittens were old enough. She’s one of the friendliest cats I’ve ever met.
I met Dove and her kittens when they were one day old, and then frantically raised some donations to be able to justify fostering them from the following day (even with donations and adoption fees, they cost over $2000… so now I’m fundraising to make up for that so I can justify the next kittens I foster).
One of Dove’s kittens died the night after I met them. Nature has chosen a scattershot approach with cats—they breed easily, often, and in large numbers—which means that kitten mortality is always very high.
That kitten may have died because there was a storm that night, and the temperature dropped quickly. But it probably died because it either wasn’t ‘fully baked’ (it was premature) or it had some kind of birth defect that wasn’t immediately visible. It was the smallest. It may even have died because it wasn’t able to feed properly due to fighting with its siblings over access. Cats have eight nipples so there’s plenty for everyone, but they still fight each other from birth for the best positions. It’s nature’s way of keeping the resources for those who are most likely to survive.
If you count the heads in this photo, you can see there are five kittens. Believe it or not, Dove is actually a very small cat (probably because she had kittens too young—kittens can get pregnant as young as four months of age… even to immediate family members).
Here’s a photo with my finger for scale. Newborn kittens weigh about the same as a pack of cards. They often don’t have fur yet on their legs and bellies. It is normal for considerable size differences between kittens. If you are trying to keep a runt alive, it may help to supervise feeding times. The nipples closer to the mum’s head have a better supply.
Basically, the most important thing for non-orphan kittens is to keep them warm as they cannot regulate their body temperature—that is the main reason they’re always cuddled up together as babies. That lack of temperature control is the most likely thing to kill them.
TEMPERATURE
For the first four days, the ambient room temperature should be between 29.4 and 32.2 degrees Celsius. A pet-safe heat pad is a good idea too. (Some people use a heat lamp, being careful to ensure there is enough room for the cat and kittens to move away from it if they get too hot). Between four and seven days you can gradually reduce the temperature to 26.7 degrees Celsius. After ten days, you can gradually reduce the temperature to 22.2 degrees (aka comfortable for humans) and keep it there until they’re four weeks old. They’re still very vulnerable at four weeks, so keep the temperature around 20 degrees, plus have cuddly spots for them to sleep. Textured fabrics like imitation sheepskin are good for reflecting heat back to the kittens.
WEIGHT
Weight is the first and best measure of health for us ignorant humans. So, kittens should be weighed daily for the first three or four weeks, and twice weekly for another three weeks after that. (The recommendation is to do this with gloves for the first four weeks, of course, so the mum doesn’t reject them due to your smell.) This chart is from kittenlady.org and also gives feeding directions for if your kittens are orphaned.
Let’s talk about kitten development week by week, with videos!
WEEK ONE
When kittens are born, their eyes are closed and their ears folded so they can’t see and can barely hear. They also have the stump of the umbilical cord, which needs to drop off by itself at around five days of age.
In addition to keeping them warm, it’s worth noting that a bed with gappy sides can be a suffocation danger. When they’re young, they’re very uncoordinated. If they fall on their back, they can’t turn themselves right way up (which was part of the inspiration for Turtle’s name). My instinct says to not change the bedding too quickly after birth. I think 24 hours might be about right, then every few days after that unless it’s noticeably dirty. However that is my guess, not professional advice. Certainly there will be blood, urine, and/or poo in their bed quite often. But you want to leave them undisturbed as much as possible, for both their sake and the mum’s sake.
F10 is a vet-grade sanitiser that is great for hands and doesn’t poison the cats through contact (like regular sanitiser does).
Kittens need to be within arm’s reach of their mum 99.9% of the time. They will also hiss at humans. To me, it looked like panting (a sign of dehydration). Mother cats are protective of their young, and even house cats will sometimes get furious if you attempt to touch their kittens at all.
I cut patches of fur from two of the kittens in order to safely differentiate them, so I knew which one was which, especially when weighing them. They gain about 10g a day, but you should weigh them at the same time to get the most reliable data possible, and record it all so you can observe trends. If they’re healthy, they don’t need to see a vet yet (a vet visit is a big deal and the stress could make them sick or even kill them).
Kittens under four weeks old can also have heart failure and die, particularly from a loud noise such as a dog’s bark or a vacuum cleaner—or from something scary, like an unfamiliar cat (cats are adorable, but they’re also extremely potent killers and it is rational for them to be afraid of other cats).
Their ears unfold in the first week, which means they start to hear better after a few days.
WEEK TWO
This is when the eyes open (gradually, over several days). Do NOT touch them unless there is discharge indicating something is wrong. Try to keep lights low as they gain their vision.
All newborn kittens have blue eyes.
They honestly don’t do much except eat and sleep.
WEEK THREE
They’re starting to walk around a bit more, which means they now have the ability to drown in a water dish! So keep water dishes nice and shallow, or put them in a slightly higher location. You don’t want them to get wet, as that will make them cold. They can climb over a very small barrier a few centimetres high, but might not be able to get back, so make sure that the area around their nesting box is also warm and fairly flat.
The kittens will start play-fighting each other but they’re not strong enough to hurt each other even if they try. Mostly it just makes them fall over. When they are first walking, their bellies often drag on the ground.
WEEK FOUR
This is the smallest kitten you’d usually see in a photo or on TV. In some ways, this is when they start getting interesting. They’re also less likely to drop dead without warning, although it’s definitely still possible. In humans, medical people often refer to the first three months of life as “fourth trimester” because a human baby is so tiny and fragile. The kitten equivalent is four weeks. They are extremely curious and quite mobile, while also being very small and quite dumb. My quarantine room is the ensuite bathroom in my home, and I never ever let them out unless I’m there to keep track of them. They are still extremely sensitive to cold and noise, and either could kill them shockingly quickly.
This is when they start being interested in toys, so there is plenty to do even in a tiny room. Dove was too tired out from the work of motherhood to want to do much herself. She was still very underweight despite getting fed excellent food. It didn’t help that big sister Kookaburra would often take a drink from her! Some people recommend removing older kittens for this reason (as soon as possible), but Kookaburra needed the comfort of family to assist with her socialisation process. I did remove Dove from the kittens when they were only about nine weeks old, for Dove’s sake, and she immediately gained weight in her new home. Otherwise I would have kept her with them until twelve weeks so they had plenty of time to observe and imitate her pro-human behaviour.
Play always includes meowing in pain, which is very important developmentally as they are teaching each other how hard is too hard. They’ll also start to struggle against their mum when she washes them (or carries them back to a safe place), and she may fight with them and/or smack them surprisingly hard when they attack her and she doesn’t feel like joining in. It’s nice for her to have somewhere high where she can watch them but still get a break physically. You can also start teaching them physical boundaries, by saying, “No” and moving away if they use their claws or bite a human. They are not strong enough to hurt you, but it builds good habits. If you want them to be safe for young children, you should avoid the temptation to use your hand as a cat toy.
WEEK FIVE
This is about when they’re likely to start eating solids. I fed them Womberoo cat milk and Royal Canin’s Mother and Baby Mousse, both of which are also great for nursing mothers and can be bought from pet stores (although Womberoo may be difficult to get and isn’t necessary except for orphans).
Although I let them on my bed, I supervised them closely so they didn’t fall off. They’re definitely at an age where they can fall/jump and injure themselves.
It was extremely interesting watching Kookaburra (their older sister) as she coped with them growing up, and clearly had some jealous/threatened feelings she needed to work out along the way. However, I could see that her claws were sheathed even when she attacked them.
Six weeks is still definitely too early to introduce them to other pets! Yes, they’re tiny and harmless… but they’re also one of nature’s most efficient killers so your other cats may freak out. Or your dog may bark and give them a literal heart attack. Or your other pets may have a minor illness that can infect and kill them, as they can’t be vaccinated until eight weeks of age.
They can definitely now climb, so that opens up a whole new world of ways to injure themselves or break your stuff. You need to supervise closely (more than ever) to spot danger as it develops. Welcome to the toddler phase! They’ll often mew for help if they feel they are too high up (or if they forget how to get back to the nest) but usually it is best to let them try to figure things out for themselves. The best judge of their ability is their mum, who definitely hears them mewing and decides whether to rescue them or not. They can fall from about twenty centimetres onto carpet without hurting themselves.
If the mum is anti-human and all the kittens are eating solids, this is when you should separate them from the mum. Otherwise they will copy her anti-social attitude.
WEEK SIX
Some people will sell kittens when they are six weeks old. This is deeply wrong as they’re barely weaned, too young to be vaccinated (or, crucially, desexed), and they definitely still need their mum AND their siblings.
But they’re incredibly cute.
This is also when their permanent eye colour starts to develop.
They will fall asleep in unusual places, making carers absolutely panic as they search their entire house for their missing kitten. Goose fell asleep in a tissue box under the bed! Other possibilities include behind cupboards, inside shoes, under clothing, behind a toilet, and much more. So it’s still best to limit them to one room. They do need space to run, and some novelty (toys, or even just moving items around). Items like scrap paper or empty bottles with rattling rubbish sealed inside can be great toys, and you can make old toys new again by removing them for a week and then bringing them back.
This is also when kitten claws will start to draw blood, so if you haven’t started training them to keep their claws sheathed with humans then now is the time (if a kitten has no siblings, it will take a lot of extra training to teach them boundaries, especially around biting). You may also want to keep some disinfectant on hand for minor wounds (on you, not on them). And be careful not to trip on them! The one down side of having kittens used to humans from birth is that they comfortably assume no one will ever step on them. (For this reason, stray kittens are often better suited to households with younger kids—they are also less likely to scratch humans, as they never forget that humans are a different species.)
As they start getting into solid food, it’s worth making sure that you have a routine and a distinctive noise that they associate with wet food (such as a bell, calling “Food time!” or the sound of a can opener). You want to make sure that when you give them more freedom, you can trust them to appear at meal times and/or when you yell “Food time” (or whatever). It is also worth thinking about getting them a collar, even if they will be inside cats, because if they do escape your house, people can tell immediately that they’re not a stray.
You can start giving them kitten-appropriate dry food a week or two after they start eating wet food. Start with just a few pieces sprinkled on or in their wet food, so their teeth and stomachs can adjust slowly. I usually start with Royal Canin, then experiment with cheaper food after ten weeks or so. If you change their food, it is vital to do it very gradually over several days. If their poo is extra smelly or sloppy after two weeks with new food, then you need to switch back to the good stuff.
They now have loads of energy and need at least two or three solid play sessions daily. If they don’t get them during the day, they will have night-time zoomies. Morning and dusk are excellent play times that fit with their natural rhythms. Surprisingly, almost all cats will adjust to your routine including waking when you wake up (and immediately demanding pats and/or food and/or play depending on their personalities).
They will toilet train themselves (make sure the litter trays have low edges that they can climb over, and that there are multiple trays), but between four and six weeks they’re likely to make toileting mistakes (and to play with the litter itself), so it’s quite a messy fortnight. I use lots of bath mats around litter trays because they’re easy to lift up and shake out, then wash. Kittens also tend to walk through their food at this age. They’re a lot like human toddlers enjoying exploration and experimentation.
I let them briefly look at some other (friendly and calm) kittens through mesh, so they could see and smell each other but not touch. It was very interesting that they had very different reactions. I think it was worthwhile to introduce them to the concept of other (non-aggressive and vaccinated) cats without actually letting them physically touch.
This week, I moved them out of my bedroom and ensuite into the official cat room.
WEEK SEVEN
This entire video is just gratuitous cuteness. They’re incredibly acrobatic at this age, and love chasing balls, chewing on things, scratching things, and getting in and out of boxes. You should be able to notice different personality traits, one of which will be whether they prefer the company of other cats or other humans. Eg. Kookaburra clearly needed a home with other cats, even though she would take a long time to trust them. And Goose needed a human who would give him lots of attention.
They can fall almost two metres onto carpet without injury now—usually. Injuries are much much less likely, but always possible.
WEEK EIGHT
They can get their first health check and vaccination at eight weeks, as well as a microchip. They can’t usually be desexed until twelve weeks. Then, after time to recover, they can be adopted. Boys are generally fine after a few days, and girls should be monitored by someone who knows them for ten days. Their operation is much more complicated.
Looking after this family was one of the best experiences of my life, and I hope I get to foster newborn kittens again someday.
I recently had someone contact me asking if I could foster two very pregnant (and friendly) cats and their babies. I had to say no, because I have to pay off the debts from the Bird kitten litter before taking any more foster babies.
If you can help me get closer to the day when I can foster another group of kittens, I would be very grateful.
Here is Turtle in photographs from a newborn baby to a confident and ready-to-adopt young man:
Okay, the last three photos were all taken on the same day. Aren’t they great though?
Felicity Banks 