Cat Has Just Given Birth: Advise Needed

wrkactjob

Just as my wife was leaving for work this morning Dora (18months old) decided to give birth. We live on a remote quiet farm.

We have never experienced this before and realise now we should have been more observant to the signs.

Anyway Dora ran to her favourite 'hiding' place behind the wardrobe in the spare room and very shortly I could hear a little but strong squeek.

This is her first time (and ours!), I have placed fresh food/milk/litter tray and her favourite warm blanket as near to her as possible.

I think she is sleeping now and things are quiet, the birthing started about 3.5 hrs ago.

My concern is that I can't see anything, she is right in the corner behind the wardrobe

Question!

Should I try to move the wardrobe so I can see how many kittens there are, are they alive/dead ( I hope not the later)...will it frighten her?...I have a good relationship with Dora so I hope she will be clever enough to know I mean her no harm.

Or should I leave things be and let her rest?....

Please advise, many thanks.

karenbi

It is a bit of a dilemma and I'm only replying in a really novice capacity as no one else has yet.

I wouldn't really like to advise as I suppose it would depend on lots of different factors but I'd be tempeted to leave her for the time being. When my girl gives birth she lets me be there and the only interference is to sometimes break the bag surrounding the kitten if she doesn't do it straight away. Obviously if a kitten isn't breathing or is in distress you can do first aid but if you don't know how to you probably wouldn't be much help to her anyway. Obviously you could call the vet if you could see if anything was wrong. What about giving the vet a quick ring to see what they say? I think many people would say to leave well alone and leave her up to it rather than risking disturbing her.

I am a member of the forum below. There's lots of professional breeders on there and they're well worth consulting them as you get a reply immediately much of the time. You do need to sign up but it's simple enough.

http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group

Hope all goes well!

wrkactjob

Thanks, I can occassionaly hear and have seen one noisey kitten but cant hear or see any others...I don't know if its feeding from Dora OK or not, how do you tell?...anyway thanks for the link and I will post there too!

karenbi

When they're little it's sometimes hard to hear if they are suckling but if you try hard you may. I'm sorry not to be much help! Do post on novice breeders site, though, they're lovely and very knowledable.

xxx

patchwork_cat

I am a breeder and my advice would be leave her alone. I wouldn't follow my advice though!!! I am a member of novice breeders group. Quick tip don't put her milk too close - rare, but a breeder friend had a kitten drown in a bowl of water as it was still attahced to mum when she went to drink and fell off into teh water.

merlin68

My kitts are 5 weeks old and were born in a box, under my dd's bed, we moved them the next day into the dog cage and they have been there since. As the person who owned her before, said that she killed one of her kitts trying to get it out of the window. I've been handling them since day 5 and they will sleep round your neck now for hours.

bouncydog1

Ours had 3 a couple of weeks ago - whole process took less than an hour - couldn't hear anything much for a couple of days. I would agree with the others about leaving them - look for signs that your cat comes out to use the loo etc. The babies don't move around much to start with and she may only have had one, particularly if she is young herself.

Lokolo

When my cat had kittens whenever we found out where she hid them, she'd move them! Went around a good 5+ hiding places!

geminilady

My cat had her kittens at the side of my bed and the bed was against the wall so i pulled it out a few feet and they lived there for weeks.She had four and there was no mess at all she cleaned everything up herself.I do not think it would hurt to pull the wardrobe out so you can see what is going on but i would not try and move the kittens,i did try putting them in a box but the mum was destressed and took them out again so i decided to leave well alone.

foreign_correspondent

My advice is to keep her indoors till you can get her speyed - cats can get pregnant surprisingly soon after giving birth I believe.

scaredy_cat

you could move the wardrobe a bit and put a cardboard box in her 'place' with an old blanket or something so that the kittens ared ket warm off the floor.