My feral rescue gave birth to one kitten

Question
QUESTION: Hi I really need your help. I rescued a feral cat and her kittens who I've kept in a separate room to socialize them. I didn't realize she was also pregnant again. I came home a few hours ago to feed them and let then run around and she had 1 kitten. She still has more in there because she looks like there is a football in her stomach. It looks like she gave birth a while ago because it is clean, has a round belly,and is very vocal and rolling around. She acts like this is no biggie...her baby is in the other room and she is out here just hanging out, not in any distress, playing with her first litter. Why is she out here and not giving birth to the rest of her kittens? Or at least paying attention to the one she just had? I think she gave birth to this one a while ago because the area where she has the first one has dried bloody stuff, its not wet and the kitten is not wet but looks good. How worried should I be that she has not given birth to the rest, is ignoring her new kitten, and is walking around like nothing happened? I just put the kitten in a towel and brought it to her and she just walked away. It keeps crying and crying for her. Her other kittens are more interested than she is. At some point I have to put them all in the same room together ( her first litter 3 months old I think??) along with the one she just gave birth to. I have my own dog and cat and rescued her along with her kittens so I could socialize them and find them good homes. I have kept them separate just in case she had anything contagious. What is the best way to handle this. I don't want her other kittens to hurt the baby, I don't know why she has not given birth to the rest, and she seems very careless about the fact that she has a newborn in the other room.  Any advice would be great. She has been out here with me for about 2 hours now and has only gone in to the other room where her kitten is once or twice. Could she have gotten preg by more than one tomcat at different times????

ANSWER: Hi Cheri.  The fact that the baby isn't being kept warm and may not have had anything to eat is more of an emergency than the fact that mom hasn't delivered the rest of her litter at this point.  A newborn really needs to eat within a couple hours of delivery, or he's in danger of hypoglycemic shock.  If you have some Karo syrup, rub a small amount of this on his gums.  It will absorb through his gums to prevent his blood sugar from plummeting.  If not, you can mix some granulated sugar with water until it melts to make a sticky syrup, and do the same thing.  He also is unable to hold his own body heat at this age, and a chill will kill him more quickly than anything else.  With no mama to keep him warm, in order to regulate his temperature at under a week old, he needs to be kept in a room around 85-90 degrees.  Or, you can keep him in a box with a heating pad set on low.  The heating pad should be covered with a towel, and you should allow him room to scoot off the pad if he feels too warm.

As it's the middle of the night, and it's unlikely that you'll be able to find any place that carries kitten formula, the baby can be given a little bit of cow's milk tonight if mama absolutely refuses to feed him.  Warm it up to body temperature and feed it in drops with an eye dropper or syringe.  I would mix in a drop or two of sugar water per dropper full.  Cow's milk is highly lacking in fats and sugars when compared to cat's milk, so this is something that the kitten can't continue to eat long term, but it will be better for him to have overnight than nothing at all.  You should get kitten milk replacement and a pet nurser as soon as the stores open tomorrow.

There are also recipes for "kitten glop" that you can find all over the internet.  These are emergency formulas that you can  make at home until you can buy commercial kitten formulas from a pet store, but most call for evaporated milk, gelatin and/or plain yogurt.  If you have all those things, then it may be worth it to create some kitten glop for tonight (recipes are easy to find online).

To answer your question, a queen very frequently will become impregnated by different toms at different times, sometimes several days apart (and much less commonly, weeks apart).   This is because she continues to breed as long as she's in heat, which lasts about 7 days.  And the act of mating itself induces her to ovulate. Despite the difference in conception dates, all of the kittens will usually be born at the same time.  Sometimes there is a break of many hours between deliveries, which may be attributed to the fact that a cat's uterus is divided into two horns.  Sometimes the kittens in one horn are delivered before the kittens from the other horn are, and there's a break in between.

When the mother is not having contractions, is not bleeding heavily and does not appear to be in any discomfort, it's generally okay to wait for a couple hours to see how things progress.  It's not necessarily abnormal to have a break as long as 12 hours.  Some cats have even gone a day or two between the delivery of their first kitten and the rest of their litter without complications, but it's best to have a vet overseeing the cat's progress at this point.  If the cat is having any strong contractions, a kitten should be born within an hour.  If that doesn't happen, a vet should be consulted right away.  

Mom may become more interested in caring for the kitten when the other babies come along, but if you can get her to settle down somehow and feed the little one, it may encourage delivery.  Breastfeeding releases oxytocin, and oxytocin strengthens contractions.


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION:





Jessica, Thank you so much for your help. At about 400am she started paying attention to her newborn. She still has not given birth to any other kittens.
She is completely fine, not in pain, no distress and seems happy. I've called almost every vet in my city and researched the Internet to death and I'm hearing so many different things I am paralyzed. Several Dr have said if she is acting fine it can be up to 36 hours between kittens and sometimes feral cats do this. I don't know how this is possible. I guess what I'm asking is what signs should I look for if the kittens inside her are no longer alive or what might she be doing if there IS a problem. Right now she is behaving like she always has. Also her female daughter who is maybe 3 months old is acting like she is the mother to this newborn. I think she may be trying to nurse it and the two of them curl up together with the baby and look so proud. They tag team checking on her when the newborn cries. Could the kitten be nursing the newborn? Is it possible that the behavior of the other female has added to the delay of the other kittens? Oh my goodness! Is it possible that this is the kittens baby and not the mammas ? The female kitten ( I call her Rebel) has always been a very sleek and on the thin side. She never looked or felt like she was pregnant as I am able to handle her and not her mom with the football belly. Keep in mind these were all feral and I've worked really hard to socialize them but the momma will only let me pet her tail.
last night Rebel was running all over the place and playing with her toys. Would a cat do that after giving birth? I guess I'm trying to make sense of this and I once again am looking for your advice. Sorry to ramble. Also money is an issue. I'm trying my best to take care of them here before going to the vet. Thanks in advance......Cheri   
p.s are you aware of anything holistic I can do to help induce labor?



ANSWER: Hello again!  I'm glad the baby is getting some nourishment!  

There isn't anything you can give a cat at home to help induce labor.  Exercise may encourage it, so if she'll go for a laser pointer, have at it.  But if she seems nervous with play, avoid it, because cats can stall labor when they feel unsafe.  This is why ferals can be so good at "holding in" babies right in the middle of delivering a litter.

It's too bad you're unable to feel her belly!!!  A little tumble inside is always comforting, so you can confirm that the babies are at least still moving.  Usually when a problem arises, you will see a change in mom's personality and appetite.  A feral cat will probably hide and have a lack of interest in food.  Breathing may become labored, you may notice heavy vaginal discharge (bloody, brown or foul-smelling), or she may vomit.  And of course, any repeated pushing for longer than an hour without delivering a kitten is a sign something's wrong.

A few of these signs - loss of appetite, hiding, bloody vaginal discharge, changes in breathing pattern - are normal signs of labor, but these should last for only a few hours and be followed by kittens!  Anything lasting longer than this where no kittens are produced suggests something may be wrong.

As for Rebel, it's probably more likely she's fascinated with the little one and is helping out unless she could be much older than you suspect.  A kitten typically goes into heat around 6 months on the young side.  If she got pregnant on her first heat, that would have to make her about 8 months old right now in order to be the mama.  

I don't think that having Rebel around would necessarily make the mama feel unsafe and cause a delay in the delivery of the other kittens.  If you look at the way a feral colony works, the females actually do band together quite often and even help one another raise litters.  

A male, especially an unneutered one of reproductive age who has not fathered the litter, would be an entirely different story.  If any of the first litter do happen to be unneutered males, you probably will want to separate them, just in case they are approaching sexual maturity.  Tomcats may kill kittens.  They do this to encourage the mother to come back into estrus so that they might impregnate her.

I hope you have more little ones soon!

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Jessica its me again...I'm sure you think I'm a moron but I'm starting to think Rebel is the mother. Please tell me what you think. When I came home last night and found the newborn, Black Kitty (the one with the football belly who is clearly pregnant) came running out as usual and acted like nothing happened I remember Rebel held back. At this point I didn't know there was a newborn on the floor. Rebel was the one who kept going back into the room with the baby. The newborn looks an awful lot like one of the males. Rebel might have been a little bigger a few days ago but not much. She is very active and playful but she was more affectionate than normal and was doing strange things like rolling around in the litter boxes and rolling around all over the floor. She is not in heat. She is the one who the newborn seems to be nursing from but its hard to tell because Rebel, Black Kitty, and the newborn are all curled up with dreamy looks on their faces. If Black Kitty did have this kitten wouldn't her stomach have gone down a little because it hasn't at all. Black Kitty is the one who I knew was pregnant due to the size of her belly. They are all very petite cats so it was obvious. I don't really know how old Rebel or her littermates are, they were small when I managed to rescue all of them. Rebel is the one who was paying attention the the newborn at first when I got home not Black Kitty, she is more protective of it and spends more time curled up with it. Black Kitty just kind of joined in. I just looked in on them and that newborn was trying to nurse from Rebel, not Black Kitty even though all three of them are all over each other. I remember last night I was all freaked out because Black Kitty was ignoring the newborn because I know she is pregnant and I just assumed she had given birth. Black Kittys belly looks just as big if not bigger than before and even if she just had one kitten shouldn't have it gone down a little at least on one side? I could be totally wrong about their age. Also Rebel is the one who has scared one of the males so much he is hiding from her and won't go into the room with them. I didn't know males will really kill kittens. Rebel, Black kitty and the newborn are in a dresser drawer and they don't leave the newborn alone. Now I'm worried about the 2 males because I don't have the space to separate them from my own pets and also from Rebel Black Kitty and the newborn. What have I gotten myself into!!! I was only trying to help them. You have know idea how hard it was to trap them all at one time, I didn't want to see them starve and my main goal was for them NOT to reproduce. I was going to get them all fixed as soon as I could handle them  which was just a few weeks ago. OK sorry to go on again..I guess my question really is if Black Kitty is really the mother of this one, should her belly be a little smaller, and also she hasn't delivered anymore babies, and she isn't acting like she even has to. I might have had 2 pregnant felines. Sorry to bother you again...I'm just bouncing this new theory around. Tell me what you think.
Cheri

Answer
Yes, you definitely may have had two pregnant felines if you're truly unsure as to Rebel's age!  The best idea, then, is to allow both cats to keep raising the baby and see who's actually nursing him.  I don't know if there's any possibility of renting a dog crate from a local shelter, but this is how I've handled some of my situations when space became an issue and I absolutely had to separate cats for safety reasons.  You could either limit the  males to the crate for now, or put Black Kitty, Rebel and the baby in there.  If you opt to put the babies in the crate, you will need to weave materials like towels or carboard through the bars along the bottom so the newborns don't squirm through.

If no crate is available, you could just let them live as if they were sort of a feral colony in the house!  If you do, indeed, have two mamas, your chances of keeping the babies safe around the males may be a little better than if you only had one.  In a feral colony, the females know that if they keep their litter nearby a female with another litter, any strange tom who comes by will be warded off by a mother who's protecting her own kittens.  You'll actually notice them take turns going to get food, etc.  It's not exactly the thought out social structure of a lion's pride, but it works.

The delivery of one kitten may not make a noticeable difference in the size of her belly if she's carrying a litter of six, so this could be deceiving.  Does Rebel's mammary area feel swollen at all, as though she's producing any milk?  It does sound like she's taking more interest than average for a cat who's not the mother or pregnant or nursing herself.  Quite a mystery.  I wonder if it will ever be solved.  It sounds like a kitty soap opera!