Expert: Jessica - 8/19/2010

Question
Two newborn kittens are in my backyard with no mother around. It's been about 3 hours and she hasn't come back yet. The ASPCA said to wait 2 days before trying to rescue them. I thought they need feeding every two hours. They keep crying. What should I do? In the past we have taken in abandoned kittens but of the six of them one had died and now I'm scared to take these in if they aren't definitely abandoned, but I would hate myself for waiting too long.

Answer
Hi Liana,

I wish I had seen your question before the sun went down.  Waiting two days is ridiculous!  No matter the age of the kittens, if they are abandoned, they'll be dead by then!  If mom hasn't come back yet and you still haven't taken in the kittens, take them in as soon as you read this answer.

Generally, I make it a habit to take in any newborns I find, even if I'm not sure mom's abandoned them.  Why?  Because without intervention, over half of them will die before they reach two months of age.  Many more will die before they reach a year old.  And even if the babies do survive the first couple months of their lives, they will be wild, uncatchable balls of teeth and claws in about 5 weeks.  We only have a window of about 3 weeks during which we are blessed enough to rescue outdoor kittens while they’re still sweet and manageable.  After this, they become fearful and difficult to handle.  If we knew mom would leave the babies in one place during that 3-week window we had to work with them, that would be nice, but mom tends to move her babies often.  I’ve had moms move their litters, never to be seen again.  I try not to allow that to happen anymore.

What works best for me, and my organization as a whole, is to rescue and situate the babies first.  This means you’d have to be committed to bottle feeding, of course.  Then, we set a trap for the mom.  The ASPCA does endorse trap-neuter-return efforts, and they might have a humane trap you could borrow.  Some shelters or animals officers will loan you one.  Otherwise, they run about $60 at lawn and garden or pet stores (the size for raccoons and skunks is the one you’d want).  Once we trap mom, we reunite her with the babies in a dog crate.  This may or may not be a suitable situation for you.  If the cat is tame, fostering her and the litter might be perfectly feasible for some families, but it takes a certain type of person to foster a feral mother with her kittens.  These cats are quite tense, and while I’ve found they generally try to fade into the background, a few of them can be protective of their babies.  The babies will NEED to be taken for socialization several times a day, or else they will turn out just as wild.  

It may be best to see if you can contact a trap-neuter-return organization in your area for help trapping the mom and determining whether she’s a friendly stray or feral.  Then, you can decide whether or not you might be able to reunite her with the kittens, or whether you or someone in the org could foster her for a few days while she recovers from her spay.

Also, remember that many people lose bottle raised kittens.  I can certainly understand why you would be apprehensive to take the babies – it’s heartbreaking to know they may not survive.  But it wouldn’t be your fault.  You never know what you’re dealing with, why the mother may have abandoned them, if the kittens may have been premature, etc.  The best you can do is try.  You’re giving them more of a chance than they have now!

Best of luck!

Jessica