dead newborn kitten - attack?

Question
The other day, my neighbor found a newborn kitten(eyes still shut, umbilical cord attached; but dry) in her back yard.  We put it in a box with clean rags and a glove with diluted milk, covered it and left it outside. That night it did get down to 60 degrees.  The next day I noted the box was gone; then later I heard another kitten in my front yard meowing(garden box): same description. I did the same, and took it to the animal shelter a few hours later.  They said it was too young to survive without it's mother, and would put it down.  I felt horrible, but felt I coudn't do anything.  Later that night I saw a cat outside my house. I thought it might be the mother and felt even worse.  The next day I spoke to my neighbor who told me she found the first kitten dead the day after we found it, still inside the box, and all bloody.  Could that cat I saw be the father, and could he have killed the first kitten?  I read that's just an old wives' tale that father cats kill the kittens, but I wonder. What do you think?

Answer
Hi Kris.  It IS, of course, possible that the father killed the kitten.  We even see mothers kill their kittens sometimes.  However, it's far more likely that another tomcat killed the baby.  Amazingly, most toms recognize their own offspring and will not harm them.  But other toms will often kill offspring that are not theirs.  Once the mother stops nursing the kittens, she usually goes back into heat, and now the new tom can move in and produce his own line of offspring.

I'm sorry you had to face such an awful situation!  If anything like this should happen again with your finding a newborn, please call around to vets to see if anyone would be willing to handraise the kitten.  There are entire networks of people who dedicate their lives to raising orphaned kittens.  Unfortunately, shelters rarely refer people to these individuals.  I know this first-hand because I nurse orphans myself, and the shelters we work with will simply put the kittens in a cage and let them die (they die after about 12 hours without nursing).  We have to have people call every day and SEE if there are kittens that need bottle nursing.