Expert: Ali - 6/5/2010

Question
We gave away our barn cats litter a week ago. We found 2 kittens in our boat and the mom was cleaning them. We moved them to a pen so they wouldn't get stepped on by the horses. The cat that's litter we just gave away, hoped in and started perring, and making sounds and started licking them. The other mom started to growl and hoped out. This other cat within 10min had started to produce milk(she was dry before this) and was acting like they were hers. Is it normal for them to take another cats litter?

Answer
Kelly,

After reading your brief history and questions I do have some questions that I think will help me get a better idea of what's going on with these girls. While it's not uncommon for related female cats or queens living in the same area to share kitten rearing duties I'm not entirely sure that's the only thing happening with your kitties. I'm hoping that the answers to the questions that I've got for you give me a more complete idea of what's going on in this particular situation. My questions are listed below as follows:

~ How old were the kittens born to the queen who has taken over another mom's litter when you gave them away?

I generally don't recommend placing kittens into adoptive homes until they're at least 12 weeks of age. I've always felt that separating a mother cat from her kittens prior to the babies being at least 12 weeks of age resulted in a variety of behavioural issues ranging from inappropriate suckling behaviour ~ these babies will quite commonly nurse on the tips of human fingers, ear lobes, lips, stuffed toys, blankets, clothing and other pets within a household simply because they weren't ready to leave mom. Mother cats also teach their babies a variety of important skills and lesssons. The little ones learn basic skills from their mother including proper litter box use, exercising claws on scratch pads or posts, how to stalk, pounce on and kill their prey, how to read feline body language and respond appropriately, how to interact properly with people (this is also partly an issue of proper socialization by human caregivers) and of course how to defend themselves. Kittens also learn important skills like learning to understand and respect boundaries (provided that people don't interfere when mom is disciplining her babies)

~ Are these two queens related?

~ Has the "foster" mom allowed the real mom of these babies to care for them?

~ How old are these moms?

~ Have any of your female barn cats shared the responsibilities in caring for one or more litters of kittens?

Barn cats are somewhat similar to cats in a stray or feral colony in that the group functions somewhat like a pride of lions in that the moms will take turns cleaning, nursing, cuddling, playing with and supervising each other's kittens which is why this is something that I'm asking you about.

I look forward to hearing from you soon so that I can help both you and your two girls sort this issue out. If you have any further cat related questions or concerns I'd be more than happy to help you out to the best of my ability.