<p>lspf72~</p>
<p>THANKS so much!!! That often happens to me too, when I post! And yes, you were asking the perfect questions! :)</p>
<p>~b.</p>
<p>B, I’m sorry to hear about the lost kitties! The cat we owned when I was a child had a couple of litters, and I remember the kittens sleeping in front of the refrigerator, where the warm air was vented. It does sound like nature is taking charge here, and that you are getting good advice from the vet. Maybe you could just keep the crate in the family room, or somewhere else where the family is, until the mama gets the hang of things. In any case, I’m sure none of it is your fault! Most cats have kittens without the help of humans.</p>
<p>Please have the kitties spay/neutered prior to going to their new homes. Don’t trust anybody to do the right thing. They can pay you for the surgery when they pick up their kitties.</p>
<p>Is the mother cat quite young? We took in a young pregnant stray. When she gave birth she seemed pretty clueless - did not bite thru the cord or clean them. 2 were still born. We cut the cords on the other 2 and rubbed some butter on them to make her lick them clean. Tthen she startd feeding them a bit. But she would move them around and hide them. One we found half eaten - ugh. Did not know if it died then she ate it or she ate it and it died. The last one she injured very badly at about 4 weeks old. Took him to the vet who did not think he would survive but he did and the vet said to separate him from mom & bottle feed him. He is now a rather clumsy but very entertaining 2 year old with less then usual balance for a cat - a house cat as he probably would not do to well outside… mom went back to the wild. So you may need to hand rear them if she is not taking care of them.</p>
<p>Everyone beat me to it…but yes, it’s very common for first time mommies to need help…even kitty mommies. 
It sounds like you’ve got it figured out B. And don’t feel too bad about the unspayed cat. I’m a ‘farm’ girl and I’m sure everyone would be horrified at the number of barn cats we had running around on our land. It was a necessity for rodent control…our cats were well cared for, but they had jobs to do. </p>
<p>We had one momma kitty who would constantly move her babies into the wheel wells of our vehicles. We found out the hard way after my mom drove into town one day, dropping a kitten on the road every hundred feet or so. Fortunately, the neighboring farmer was traveling behind my mom and scooped them up one by one and returned them to us. Miraculously, none were hurt! We tried to relocate this momma and her family indoors, but she would have none of that. So we all just learned to check for babies before we started our vehicles.</p>
<p>Berurah, I don’t have the answers to any of your questions, but just wanted to wish you and the little kitties and the mommy kittie well. Please tell them our kittie says hello and hang in there, everything is going to be o.k.</p>
<p>B – I like the crate suggestion. I like the “hold her down and let the babies get her used to nursing” suggestion. I think she probably will get the hang of it fairly soon.</p>
<p>I also generally feel that the momma cat (bunny, bird, hamster etc) knows a heck of a lot more than we do about which ones are healthy and which are not. Whenever I have a mom throw a baby out of the nest (and I am not referring to wild fledgling birds) it’s because there is <em>something</em> wrong with the baby. </p>
<p>Good luck … there’s nothing as wonderful as baby kittens! Unless it’s baby bunnies or the helpless baby parrots I am off to handfeed this morning!</p>
<p>I just returned from the vet’s office. I am so sad to tell you that we lost another kitten last night, even though Belle had been with them all evening and night. :(</p>
<p>Belle and the remaining three babes have been pronounced healthy. In fact, the vet said that Belle looked fabulous for just giving birth to six kittens. He had taken Belle out of the crate we brought her in to give her a shot to increase lactation (which was sufficient before that), and when she climbed back into the crate, she sat RIGHT on top of her babies. After watching this, the vet said that Belle wasn’t very careful about how she sat/laid on her babies, and he thought that she may have accidentally suffocated the other ones…<em>sigh</em>. He told me to buy her kitten food to give her the extra nutrients and just to keep an eye and weigh the remaining kittens every day on a food scale to make sure they are gaining weight. And we’ll keep an eye to make sure she doesn’t plop down right on top of the rest of the kittens. </p>
<p>We’ll do our best…I just hope it’s good enough to keep the rest of the kittens alive and well.</p>
<p>I want to thank each and every one of you who have contributed loving thoughts, encouragement, commiseration, and fabulous suggestions. Y’all are simply the BEST! 
I’ll keep you posted.</p>
<p>love, ~berurah</p>
<p>We are a volunteer foster family for a Golden Retriever rescue group and took care of a pregnant stray in November 05. She had the puppies much sooner than the x-ray at the vet predicted. The first one was born on my bed while I was out front planting tulip bulbs! The rest were born in my bedroom in a baby swimming pool lined with towels. </p>
<p>The mama dog did not want to take care of her puppies, other than licking them and their poops. We stayed with her and fed her cheese bits to encourage nursing. On day 3 I bought a postage scale at Office Max that was 0-5 pounds (although we kept track using grams). At each feeding, we distracted the mom and took the 4 biggest puppies out of the room and let the 5 little ones nurse for as long as they wanted and then we brought in the big ones and let them nurse. I weighed them 2-3 times/day. We used rick-rack from the sewing dept at walmart to identify them. The tiniest puppy was 300 grams. </p>
<p>I kept the heat in the house turned up and put a heating pad under a towel. They preferred to make a big dog pile. It was adorable.</p>
<p>Thanksgiving and Christmas are a blur that year. Mama dog never initiated nursing – we had to coax her every time. We tried to get the puppies to use all of her teats. I put petroleum jelly on her nipples if they got red. It seemed to help a lot. We tried to supplement with bottles but the big puppies gulped it down and the little puppies couldn’t get the hang of it. I didn’t want to endanger her milk supply too much (being a former LLL member) so we quit that after a day or so. I can’t remember how old they were when we ground up high quality puppy food and mixed it in the blender with puppy formula and made puppy gruel – 3-4 weeks? It was such a mess getting them to eat but Mama enjoyed cleaning them afterwards. They were eating it dry by 5 weeks.</p>
<p>All of the puppies were adopted out through our rescue group and I was responsible for talking to the applicants. It was the worst part. I was horrified at some of the “helpful information” the applicants volunteered. Overall, it was a wonderful, but extraordinarily exhausting, experience for our family. </p>
<p>Good Luck with your kittens. Let me know if there is anything specific I can answer.</p>
<p>MaryTN - great story!!! I am also a volunteer foster for an all breed rescue. I have a few mama and puppy stories – but nothing that beats yours. lol.</p>
<p>Berurah—best wishes with the new babies!</p>
<p>Berurah—good luck with the kittens. </p>
<p>Take lots of pictures!!</p>
<p>So sorry to hear about the third kitten, b. 
</p>
<p>I hope the rest of the little ones are doing well today.</p>
<p>Berurah, Sorry to hear about the third kitten. You sound like a wonderful Kitty Mom, and you are doing a good job. It’s so hard to know what to do. Our German Shorthair, Patience, had a litter of 9 pups three years ago. It was a real learning experience for all of us. We had a big box ready to confine Patience and her puppies. We spoke with our vet and visited many doggie web sites, looking for puppy care hints. Our experience with Patience not wanting to stay with the pups was a little different. She was great at first, but then we started having our friends and extended family visit. Well, she then wanted to leave the “nest”. We had to limit visitors. Also, the first 3 nights my younger D slept on the kitchen floor to make sure Patience didn’t leave the pups at night or roll over on them. When I look back, it is hard to believe how much work was involved!</p>
<p>Berurah,
oh good luck with the kitties! I’m looking forward to following their progress and I do hope the mommy cat learns how to be a good mom quickly.</p>
<p>The only thing I would add is that kittens have a socialization period that starts at around two weeks. Once their eyes are open and they are exploring, you should handle and play with the kittens lots to help them socialize to people.</p>
<p>Hey y’all~</p>
<p>This is one of the hardest posts I’ve had to write, except for the one about Patchy. </p>
<p>I am <em>so</em> sorry to have to give you all this very sad update. Despite our having made numerous calls and a visit to the vet–and our having followed his instructions to a T–we were unable to save any of the kittens. The last kitten passed away on Sunday afternoon, but I just haven’t had the heart to update this thread. The feelings have been too raw. :(</p>
<p>I am thinking that there must have been some infection or something else that we didn’t know about. We took care of warmth, food, etc., and were finally able to coax Belle to nurse them, but like with MaryTN’s puppies, it took a great deal of effort and encouragement, essentially three of us sitting with her at every nursing. Despite this, the sweet, teeny tiny kittens succumbed one by one. It was so completely sad and very defeating after the efforts of the kids and me. </p>
<p>Belle has had a hard time. Though she wasn’t the best mama in the world, she did love her babes. She has been roaming around, meowing and looking for them in the place where we had her nest and then jumping up onto the couch to look for them there as that is where we sat with her and her babes for some of the nursings. She’s been super clingy and following me around. When I’m at the computer, she climbs into a chair I’ve put right by me just for her–in fact, she’s here right now.</p>
<p>MaryTN, I have the utmost admiration for you…you did so fabulous with your pups! You should be SO proud of all of the precious lives you saved. I wish we had been able to do the same.</p>
<p>Again, I want to offer so much gratitude to all of you who have offered your support, encouragement, and condolences. Y’all really kept us going all weekend, and the last thing I ever wanted to do was to come back here and tell you all how this turned out. :(</p>
<p>love, ~berurah</p>
<p>Oh you poor thing - and your kiddos. How devastating. Sounds like you did all you could and then some. I’m so sorry.</p>
<p>Oh how sad. I hope your kids are taking this OK. Very very sorry.</p>
<p>Thanks, binx and Alu…</p>
<p>It <em>has</em> been hard on the kids, particularly my oldest D and youngest S who stayed up all hours with me to try to save them. My youngest S (9), had these HUGE, FAT tears rolling down his still baby-round cheeks at 2:30 a.m. Sunday when we lost kitten babe number four. I had to lay with him for a bit to calm him down and tell him that he was doing a GREAT job and that it WASN’T his (or any of ours) fault… <em>sigh</em></p>
<p>~b.</p>