My cat had premature kittens. How do I care for mom and babies?

Hello. Make sure your Momma cat has a quiet, safe & secure area to have her kittens, away from noise, other pets, & weather. You can begin feeding her a good kitten food ( dry or canned ) and continue the kitten food up until the kittens are weaned . This will give her extra calories to maintain her pregnancy & provide plenty of rich milk for her kittens. She will probably not leave her babies for the first couple of days, so make sure her litter box, food & water are close by. Good luck & thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

If you choose to care for them, your primary goal will be to keep them warm, stimulate their bowels / urinary tract, and feed them up to every 2-3 hours at first. The use of a blanket and heating pads may be required for warmth. If you do not have a heating pad, I would recommend going out to obtain one in the morning. As for stimulation, you need to rub their bellies and behinds to get them to go to the bathroom after each time they eat. As for feedings, you will need to obtain kitten milk replacer and a bottle. The kittens should be fed in an upright position as to avoid aspiration of the liquid. It is a tiring job and they still may not make it, so do not take it personally if things do not work out. You can certainly try to keep the kitten with mom if you think she isn't going to hurt them, but I would monitor them extremely carefully. If there is any indication of aggression remove them entirely. Hope this helps.

The good news is that most mother cats are very good mothers, and we generally don't have to do much to help them. I am attaching a link to a handout on orphan kittens in case you need it, but the most important thing is to make sure that they have a safe, warm and quiet place for Taiga to take care of them. And make sure that Taiga is eating a kitten food since she will need a lot of calories to make enough milk for the babies. https://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=A&S=0&C=0&A=576 Good luck! I hope that was helpful. Thanks for using PetCoach.

Make sure there is no stress, leave mama alone. Do not constantly handle the kittens. Feed Bambi good quality kitten food, wet and dry. Leave the kittens with mama until they are at least 12 weeks old. Take them to a veterinarian for vaccinations at the age of 8 weeks (and continue for the next rounds of vaccinations as your vet prescribes), start worming them at 6 weeks and worm them every 2 weeks until they are 12 weeks old. Apart from that, cat mamas are great mothers who will teach their kittens everything they need to know, what food to eat, how to use a cat litter box, how to hunt, how to play fight (important for kittens to grow up with their siblings until they are 12 weeks plus old.) Congratulations and enjoy!

You can get her spayed now, that's fine to do. Speak to her vet about feeding her a kitten food to give her extra calories, calcium, and protein to make her gain weight. I would free feed her for now (leave food out all the time) so she can eat when she's hungry.

The best thing you can do is to weigh her twice daily to make sure she's growing appropriately. Kittens should gain 10% of their birth weight per week, or if you don't know the birth weight you should make sure the kitten is gaining weight each day and not losing weight. If she is not gaining weight it would be a good idea to see a vet for an exam and potentially to supplement with bottle feeding.

Unfortunately this is really hard to do. You want to make sure the kitten is warm and body temperature never gets cold. I would recommend taking the kitten to a vet so they can show you how to place a feeding tube and start feeding a kitten milk supplement. It is very important that the kitten gets colostrum with in 24 hours. Colostrum has antibodies in it to help support the kitten.