Expert: Marcia Owen - 1/29/2011

Question
Dear Marcia

My pedigree Himalayan queen which was pregnant for exactly 53 days suddenly went into labor today afternoon. As I had previously had queens that had miscarriages I thought it was a miscarriage. She went into her nest , started purring , and then after few minutes she had just one placenta , and then it all stopped ! Nothing else. She licked her bloody vagina and cleaned it , stopped purring and came out of the nest and started to behave normally again! I am quite surprised. What is going on? Can you please help? I can not take her to the vet for now. Do you think it was a case of false pregnancy? Is having just a placenta something normal and common?

This is her third litter , and she's 3 years old. In her last two litters she had 6 kittens each time.

P.S In this pregnancy of her, the belly had not gone big at all while in last 2 pregnancies she had gone so big.

Thank you so much
Soheil

Answer
Dear Soheil

It is known for girls to 'abort' anything in the womb that may cause the kittens problems and then go full term with the rest.  However, I really think as the womb has now opened that your vet should prescrible something like Synulox, Noroclav or Clavaseptin which is a broad spectrum antibiotic, to cover your girl until she has gone full term and hopefully kittened.

Keep a close eye on her in case she has the rest of the kittens early.  I would say that if she has them before 7 days before their due date there is little chance of them surviving and each day they stay in the womb till due date gives them a better chance of survival.

I will keep everything crossed for your girl.

Regards

Marcia