New mother with 4 kittens

Question
Hi, our cat Fred has 5 kittens on 3/31. 1 died about 3 days later.  She had them under a bed and we moved them to a closet. We set it up with a large box room for Fred to relax away from her kittens and food and water and a litter box.  she has tried to move them twice since then.  Are we not to be visiting her and her kittens? they will be two weeks old on 4/14.  Can we just visit Fred, if we don't handle the kittens? I have children, they don't visit the kittens without Fred being there.  Can we move them when they are older to a more social place? If so at what age?  Thank you.

Answer
Monica,

It sounds as if the noise and commotion of a busy household has Fred a little anxious about the safety of her little family. I do recommend that you start exposing the kittens to more sights, sounds and people around about 3 weeks of age. I wouldn't suggest that you allow children under 7 years of age to handle the kittens until they are at least 4 weeks old. Very young kittens have soft bones and limited immune systems, essentially that makes the kittens very susceptible to viral and bacterial infections which can prove fatal in young kittens as well as the risk of accidentally broken bones. I would not recommend that younger children handle any pets at all without close adult supervision as the pets can either hurt the children accidentally or be hurt. Most mother cats want their babies to be in a dim, warm, safe and quiet environment. The litter box and food that you supply Fred needs to be geared towards the kittens as they will soon be watching mom use the litter and eat food which will generally teach them those skills. Fred needs to be eating a high quality kitten food any time that she is pregnant or nursing as this will enable her to meet the nutritional needs of her rapidly growing babies. I think that the room that the kittens are in should be adults only (unless children come in one at a time with close adult supervision) until the kittens are a bit older (around 4-5 weeks of age). While I recommend that for good socialization kittens be exposed to gentle handling by a variety of people (hand washing to prevent infection is recommended), these visits should be carefully supervised reasonably short, and with no more than one kitten at a time (who should not leave Fred's line of sight). Handling of the kittens should take place when the house is quiet. The kittens need a warm, quiet place with lots of rest in order to grow and develop as they should. At this age kittens are completely dependant on their mother to meet all of their needs. It is wise to make sure that mom has a bed made up of clean and warm towels and a cardboard box that is easy for Fred to get out of and will keep the kittens contained. Mom will begin weaning her babies at about 6-8 weeks of age. Once the kittens are weaned the ideal situation for them is to have another 3-4 weeks with their mom for socialization which essentially means teaching the kittens how to be adult cats. Once mom is finished nursing and her milk has been dried up for about 2 weeks or so I would strongly recommend that you have Fred spayed so that she doesn't continue to contribute to the serious pet overpopulation problem. In shelter systems cats and kittens tend to have incredibly high euthanasia rates simply because there are not enough good homes for all who need them. I hope that all of this information is helpful. If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me again. If you would like you can send pictures of Fred and her babies through the site, I really do enjoy seeing photos of the cats that I have helped through my time volunteering.