Nursing kittens

Question
my kittens are weeks old today. I also have another cat who is pregnant and is due to have her kittens any day. My question is that yesterday I noticed the the weeks old kittens are nursing off of her instead of their mother. Is there any danger in this for their mom or the other cat who is pregnant?

Answer
Anita,

If the other kittens are nursing on the pregnant mother then that will help stimulate her milk for her kittens. Lots of mothers trade off kittens and nursing. The problem arises when the older kittens nurse on a mother cat and shove the newest kittens away. Make sure that all the kittens have a nipple to nurse from, no matter whose it is. If they all go to one mother then separate the mothers so the littlest kittens will get enough milk.

To have enough milk and to gain back what the babies take out of a mother you will need to feed them about 4 times the amount of food they normally eat. Feeding the moms Kitten Chow until the babies are weaned is good because it is high in protein.

Note: cats can go into heat and get pregnant 48 hours to two weeks after giving birth so you might want to think about getting the moms spayed when the babies are weaned (about 8 weeks old).

Carol