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So....kitties!!! *pics*
tuscloud311
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, our cats decided to ...you know....with eachother.
(As a side note, and just because i have the pics....here are the parents when they were very young:)
Brother and sister...we never intended on keeping the cats, so we didnt get them "fixed". And well, we TRIED our best to not let anything happen, but you know how it goes..
ANYWAY, so we have 4 kittens now, just gave birth last night without any pain on the mommy's part.
On with the pics!
^^ In this pic, if you notice on the bottom right side, you can see one of the kittens has a "hooked" foot. Actually, both back legs were probably cramped within the womb and were developed incorrectly. We did some research and it turns out that it is pretty common and theres a good chance of the legs developing normally in time without any special treatment. This (so far) seems to be the only anomaly with the kittens, despite their birth being products of inbreeding.
Pic with a hand for size comparison:
The mom caring for her little ones:
The dad looking after from a distance:
Maybe i should include a question just so it justifies being in the H/A...:
We dont know what to do with them just yet. Nor do we know a good age to separate the kittens from the mother. Anyone have experience "letting go" of kittens? I hate to see them be separated, but i know it happens all the time.
Any advice for the future of these 4 would be appreciated!
(As a side note, and just because i have the pics....here are the parents when they were very young:)
Brother and sister...we never intended on keeping the cats, so we didnt get them "fixed". And well, we TRIED our best to not let anything happen, but you know how it goes..
ANYWAY, so we have 4 kittens now, just gave birth last night without any pain on the mommy's part.
On with the pics!
^^ In this pic, if you notice on the bottom right side, you can see one of the kittens has a "hooked" foot. Actually, both back legs were probably cramped within the womb and were developed incorrectly. We did some research and it turns out that it is pretty common and theres a good chance of the legs developing normally in time without any special treatment. This (so far) seems to be the only anomaly with the kittens, despite their birth being products of inbreeding.
Pic with a hand for size comparison:
The mom caring for her little ones:
The dad looking after from a distance:
Maybe i should include a question just so it justifies being in the H/A...:
We dont know what to do with them just yet. Nor do we know a good age to separate the kittens from the mother. Anyone have experience "letting go" of kittens? I hate to see them be separated, but i know it happens all the time.
Any advice for the future of these 4 would be appreciated!
tuscloud311 on
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As to separating them, 6 weeks is basically the minimum. Ideally longer (8-10). It would be best if they could be kept together, or at least given away in pairs only. In fact the shelter we adopted our cat from a few years ago will only adopt young kittens in pairs. At that age it's much better for them if they have another cat their own age to play/socialize with.
I highly recommend that you try to give the cats away in pairs, if you plan to give them away at all. They will be, generally, much friendlier and better adjusted than cats who are alone.
wow. that was crazy! Anyway, thanks for advice! i never knew about that.
When you give them away, do send them out in pairs, and don't give them away for free to people you don't know well. If you charge a small adoption fee, it'll weed out a lot of shitty homes or people who want a cat for bad reasons (lab testing, bait for fighting dogs, etc.). Make sure you screen your adopters well, call their landlords to make sure they're allowed cats, that kind of thing. You don't want these kittens to wind up in shelters like so many other accidentally-bred cats.
Your big priority should be getting your adult cats fixed. Mama Cat has to wait until the kittens are weaned, but there's no reason Papa Cat shouldn't be neutered as soon as possible. Please don't wait. Having a litter so young is hell on a female cat's body, and having two in such a short time would be dangerous for her. Check out free and low-cost spay and neuter options in your area if price is an issue.
I'm by no means an expert on the issue, but I can say that the breeder we got our cats from had us wait till they were 3 months old. Better for them to have as much time as possible to be socialized before you give them to someone else, also.
Also, as someone else has said, please get the father neutered ASAP and the mother spayed after the appropriate stage of the kitten's growth. They will both be much better off for it.
Our two furballs - the orange one isn't as fat as he appears, he just has an incredible amount of fluff:
yeah, they were pretty obnoxious at first...but once they settled in and understood some basic rules...it wasnt that bad at all.
And then get the female spayed as soon as the kittens are gone.
Um advice... yah. Maybe put a small teddy in the box, and when you give the two away, send the teddy with them so it smells like mom.
And yeah, let them hang with mom for 2-3 months. It'll cost you a bit extra in litter and food, but they'll be much better cats for it. Cut dad's nuts too, no sense having this again right?
Typically, just let momma cat do the raising. Socialize with them after the eyes are open and they're steady on their feet. Put one of your shirts or something in momma's box early on too, to get them used ot your smell. But hold off on handling for a few weeks I'd say--this is an educated guess from my work with exotics rather than direct feline experince though.
My wife's parents just had to put down a cat that was 4 -- it was having seizures and freaking out. Turns out that for its entire life, it had Feline Leukemia (FeLV).
Sadly, the most responsible thing to do for unwanted kittens is to euthanize them. If you don't want to euthanize them, you should take them to the vet for their first round of shots at 1 month, and again at 2 months, and then give them away or sell them at about 10 weeks of age. They'll be due for their last kitten shots at 3 months. Given them kitten food for the first month, and then slowly transition them to kitten kibble and wet food. Keep them around their mom until around 4-5 weeks -- she'll naturally train them to use the litter box, etc. Keep them away from dad during that first month to 6 weeks, or he might kill them.
This is one of the most incorrect statements I have ever read.
The most responsible thing to do for unwanted kittens is to take responsibility for the fact that you neglected to get their parents spayed or neutered, and raise those kittens and take care of them for the rest of their lives. This is assuming you cannot find anyone else who will do this. There is nothing responsible about avoiding the problem by killing innocent animals.
I have four cats, and believe it or not, they are not as difficult to take care of as a single human child. People get overwhelmed by numbers, but the difference between caring for two cats and four cats is minimal. More changing of the litter box, more food to buy, but that's about it. And cat food is definitely much cheaper than people food.
They're like little portable space-heaters on cold nights!
Seriously, somebody someplace wants teh kitty. It's just a matter of finding them, so I think you'll be fine.
Maybe throw some posters up around town, or an ad in the paper?
That's fine, but that's personal opinion. If you don't want your cats to have kittens, you should have them fixed ASAP. If you don't, you fully bear the responsibility of what happens. It is far less responsible to simply have kittens and force them on the SPCA, or get rid of them as soon as you have to spend any money on them.
You can be touchy-feely, but he already has 2 cats and arguably does not want 6 cats. But to properly raise kittens, you should treat them like you're going to keep all 4 of them. Vet visits and shots aren't cheap, and kittens require a lot more care than adult cats. Therefore, if someone is unwilling to pay the expense of their mistake (not neutering their cats), euthanizing is the best option.
Far better than simply forcing unweaned kittens on other people, where they'll have a host of personality issues from not being brought up properly, or pushed on people who don't really want the pets, or pushed into the unwanted animal system of SPCA or humane society. You know that animal control also euthanizes excess pets, right? It's the right thing to do for unwanted animals.
Certainly this is true. However, in the event that the owner did not have the parents spayed/neutered and now has kittens, the most responsible thing is to take care of the kittens or find them a good home, not to kill them.
From what I've read no one is suggesting dumping the kittens on the SPCA.