How and when to separate the kittens from their mom

Question
Hi Ali:

I work at a Museum. Two kittens were born in our storage area. They are still with their mom. We do not know how old they are  but they are not tiny. I will provide a home for them. However, before I take them, we would like to know how to separate them from their mom. We don't want them to be traumatized.

What is the right way to do it? Is there a way to know how many weeks they have and it is the right time to take them home?

Thanks so much for your help!

Adriana.

Answer
Adriana,

I would suspect that you can guess a ball park age if you can get them to a vet. Even in the case of stray cats you will sometimes see the mother caring for her babies and teaching them how to hunt up until about 12 weeks. I would recommend that you try to catch the mother and her babies and take everyone to the vet for a health check. Another purpose for taking everyone to the vet is to look at having the mother cat spayed and rehomed so that no more kittens are born that will risk living life without someone to love them and care for them. In terms of the babies the vet will be able to give you a reasonably accurate guess as to how old they are. My thoughts would be to see whether mom and babies are responsive to coming to someone with tuna or some other such smelly food that appeals to cats. Some cats like chicken, some like lamb, some will eat just about anything. Failing that you can try to remove the family's access to the rest of the building and the outdoors and speak with your local animal shelter or veterinarian about using a humane trap to catch the kitties. You will want to be sure that you are available to check the traps that you set at least every hour or so when you are trying to catch the cats. I would suspect that your best course of action is to catch the whole family and determine whether or not the kittens are old enough to leave their mother. If you opt to use a humane trap try baiting it with smelly foods like tuna, salmon, sardines, or even cat food with a strong fishy smell. Generally if you set the trap when most folks are gone for the day and keep things fairly quiet you will most likely win the family over just with food. If you can catch the family by hand without stressing them out too much then you should be okay to just catch them and put them into a cat carrier. This will not be an overnight project, it may take several days or even a week or two. The concern that I have in terms of the kittens is that if they were not handled by people they may be feral and that can sometimes pose difficulties taming them. Another option is to call animal control in and have them sedate the cats with a dart gun, but this is truly a last resort and I do not recommend it. Hopefully some of this information is helpful. Please do consider spaying and neutering the kittens and their mother. Some of the obvious benefits are behavioral. In terms of the behavioral benefits of spaying and neutering cats, there are generally fewer aggression issues with cats that are altered, there is also a much lower incidence of urine marking, and of course the obvious is that the cats are not as likely to roam or keep your neighbors up advertising for a mate. The medical benefits of desexing your cats are things like reduced incidences of mammary and reproductive infections and tumors. Another bonus is that the kitties you are looking to rescue will not be creating more unwanted cats and kittens that are likely to be euthanised in a shelter setting. Unfortunately cats are seen as disposable pets of little importance which means that unfortunately they have incredibly high euthanasia rates within the shelters. Please keep me posted and feel free to let me know how things turn out. I am a little concerned as I am not sure how old the kittens are, whether the mom and babies are feral or if they are people friendly. If you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me again.