Expert: Ali - 8/13/2010

Question
Hello, I am 14 and recently started volunteering at a local cat shelter cleaning rooms where the cats are living. The facility runs on a no-pay type of environment so all workers all volunteers. They have a program where pregnant females come into the shelter and they cannot have their kittens in the shelter for health reasons and things. They give the cats to caring homes until the kittens are weaned. They offered me a cat that needs this sort of attention. I said i would talk to my parents. We have two 4 year old male cats that have been neutered, and a golden retriever/lab mix puppy that is only about 5 months. The puppy likes to play with the cats but the cats do not like him. I would like to take the pregnant cat in but i have a finished basement for her to live in until the kittens are born and raised a little bit. Is it possible that the two males could be introduced with the female or does the female have to live in a consolidated area? Also, can the female live in an area as small as a bedroom? Hope you can help! Thanks.

Answer
Nathan,

I'd like to start off my answer to you by saying that I am really impressed at your maturity and your willingness to give your time and attention to cats who don't have too many people in their corner. It sounds to me like you'll make an incredible foster carer for this mom and her kittens with a little help and guidance from your parents and the folks at the shelter. I'm happy to do absolutely anything that I can to help you provide the best possible foster home for this momma and her babies as well as any other kitties you're interested in providing a temporary home for. It's nice to see that you're being pro-active and you want to help a homeless queen have the healthiest babies she can and raise them to be as strong, healthy and full of mischief as they should be.

Ideally the queen (prior to giving birth) and her new family (after she's had her babies) would be isolated from the other pets in your family for a variety of reasons. Newborn kittens have very weak immune systems so it's best to keep them away from any other pets because other pets can potentially spread viral/bacterial infections that their systems are fighting off successfully and these sorts of infections could prove fatal for young kittens. Mom should also be kept in the room with her babies so that she doesn't pick up any sort of bug and bring it back to her little ones. This queen and her kittens could easily enjoy temporary living in a space as small as a bedroom (which I'm sure you'll agree is much larger than the average shelter cage). There are some very important things to consider when you're thinking about fostering a mom to be and her babies - mom needs an environment that's as quiet and stress free as possible (which is why the shelter looks for foster homes for these moms). Here are some important things to think about before you speak with your parents about fostering this mom to be and her new arrivals:

- Although newborn kittens are simply adorable and they do need to be handled for the purposes of good socialization it's crucial to their overall health and wellbeing that they aren't handled too much. As newborns the only jobs that kittens have are to eat, sleep and grow and it's best not to interfere with that too much. You can handle the babies and allow a variety of people to handle them for short periods of time a few times each day provided that everyone practices proper hygiene procedures (ie: washing hands thoroughly in hot, soapy water before and after handling the kittens to prevent any bugs being transmitted from other pets to the babies which could prove fatal at an early age.)

- When it comes to situations where the kittens and their mom need to go back to the shelter to be checked over by the vet or for other routine care it's important to make every possible effort not to separate mom from her kittens if at all possible since that can interfere with the bond between mother and babies causing the queen to reject her babies which wouldn't be a good situation for anyone involved. Orphaned/rejected kittens raised by people tend to have a higher incidence of behavioural issues simply because mother cats are much more adept at teaching good behavioural habits than we are as humans - mother cats discipline their babies properly most of the time and the lessons the kittens learn are invaluable in terms of their future within a home environment. If at all possible I'd also suggest keeping mom and her kittens together until the babies are at least 12 weeks old as behaviourists have begun to recognize that kittens taken from mom prematurely are much more likely to develop serious behavioural issues that could potentially cost them their lives at some point via euthanasia by a private vet or being turned into a shelter as an adult cat and deemed unadoptable.

- Mom and her babies will need a few different things:

    ~ When momma kitty is close to giving birth she will do best in a quiet, private and dimly lit room with as few interruptions by people as possible. As momma kitty delivers her babies she will need some special time to bond with her babies so it's best if you only handle them for short periods of time and keep them within sight of their mom particularly for the first 7-10 days of life.

    ~ You'll need to provide mom with a birthing box to have her babies in. A medium to large sized cardboard box with sides that are low enough to allow mom to get into and out of the box while keeping the little ones safely inside will do nicely. It's a really good idea to line the inside of the box with old towels and I also like to use a puppy training pad underneath the bedding to prevent stains on the floor under the box during the birthing process. The bedding in the box will need to be changed regularly to make sure that the mom and her babies stay healthy and clean.

    ~ As a potential foster carer for this mom and her babies it's important to realize that you will have a big responsibility on your hands - you will need to begin the process of socializing these babies from early in their lives until they're ready to go into their permanent homes and I have to admit it's sometimes very difficult to pass these babies off to their new forever families because you do get very attached to each kitty you foster, particularly the babies.

If you have any further questions or concerns please don't hesitate to contact me again - I'm more than happy to help you out to the best of my ability.