Why did my young cat abandon her kittens after one passed away?

Hi, thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! I am so sorry this is happening. Either Cara is a bad mother or this is a natural thing she is doing because the kittens are abnormal. Nature is hard and animals do things differently than people. If she keeps having litters that are born prematurely or are sickly that is a problem. I would suggest having her spayed so she can not have kittens anymore. I hope this helps and I wish you and Cara the best!

She may need to eat or use the litter box, causing her to leave them for a bit. She may have been planning on coming back. It could be that Oya is rejecting her kittens, which can happen. Some cats are poor mothers and will reject their kittens, while others will reject a kitten because they know it's sick and not going to make it. It can take time for a mother kitten attend to their kitten, and I would leave her and her kittens alone for 30 minutes in a room. Come back and see if she has groomed them, and/or started to feed them. If she has started bonding with them, then it's fine. If there is no evidence that she has started taking care of them, then you will have to feed them yourself. This requires a kitten formula and bottles. You can get kitten formula from a pet store or a grocery store. I will put a link below on how to care for newborn kittens. Best of luck, I hope this helps! https://www.2ndchance.info/orphankitten.htm

Poor thing. Sometimes mama cats can sense that a kitty has some sort of defect, so they will neglect them and focus on the healthier kitty. Also, if somehow the kitty was touched by a person and the mother no longer smells the kitty's scent, but instead a human, this too will cause the mother to neglect said kitty. Give it time and continue to monitor this kitty closely to see if she is getting fed and stimulated to pee and poop on her own. If she isn't, then it may be a good idea to separate the kitty and nurse her yourself until she can be weaned onto kitty dry food, which is around 3-4 weeks of age.

Mother cats will commonly abandoned kittens who are sick or have congenital abnormalities. I recommend to have Hope examined by the veterinarian to check for any obvious abnormalities. This would be the most proactive approach. You may need to bottle feed Hope and take over the role as her mother. You can find many great articles on the Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach website. Best of luck and please feel free to post any additional questions.

Yes she can still nurse the kittens, if she still has milk. Sometimes a queen can also restart making milk. This is great as she will take care of them emotionally, hygienically and teach them everything they need to know, especially if you do not take them away before they are 12 weeks old. If she does not have milk (the kittens will get grouchy and whine ) you will need to feed them with kitten formula. You can find out their age by weighing them. For each week of age they are 3.5 oz , so if they are three weeks old they would weigh about 10.5 oz. If you are not sure that mama has milk, take her to your vet who can check that for you. Thank you for taking in those kittens.

The most common cause of momma cats killing or cannibalizing their young is because they sense something may be wrong with the kitten. This might be they sense some sort of illness or some sort of congenital abnormality. They view this as a threat to themselves and more importantly to the other kittens in the litter. It seems gruesome and cruel, I know, but it is how nature works unfortunately. The other reason we see it sometimes is stress. This occurs most commonly in first time moms, or cats who are giving birth under less than ideal circumstances. Sometimes, cats who have their kittens handled too much by humans can respond with this type of behavior.

I don't know what your question is exactly but this is highly abnormal. These complications could be from an incest breeding, an infection, a uterine abnormality (congenital) or a viral disease. This is not a cat that should be breeding. I suggest you give her a week or so to recover from giving birth and then get her spayed before she becomes pregnant again. She can still nurse kittens (if there are any still nursing) even after being spayed.