Feral cat pregnant... again!

Gosub

Hi All,
I'll try to keep this long saga as short as I can.

Over last winter, a young feral cat was nosing around so we fed her, as you do. She was, and is, truly feral and hisses and spits, even when she approaches us.

It became clear in May that she was pregnant and it was obvious when she had delivered, so we followed her to her nest. There were 4 kittens. All looked healthy enough and were in a safe place, so we left them there and kept feeding the mother.

About 4 or 5 weeks later she brought 3 kittens to our garden. We checked the birth site, no sign of the 4th. One of the kittens had trouble breathing, but otherwise they looked healthy.

We contacted the local vets (2 different ones) to find out what we should do. Both said that the mother won't get pregnant while she it still feeding the kittens and that there was nothing we could do for the kittens until they are 6 months old.

Last week, the mother stopped feeding them and aggressively batted them away when they approached her. It's clear now why: she's pregnant again!

We really need to deal with this situation but don't know where to turn. Feralcatsireland have no volunteers here in Wexford and local vets don't seem to want to know.

Two of the kittens can be handled, but not confined. They go bat crap crazy if they think they're trapped. The other is far more skittish and won't let anyone near him. The one with the breathing issue is constantly dripping green mucus from his nose, but he's the tamest one and he's not too stressed having his nose wiped.

Now, another feral litter will be delivered just as the weather turns cold. What can we do to help these poor animals? We need help here.

boomerang

You could rent a trap from petbliss.ie and find a local vet who will give you a price? You can buy a very basic trap for about €50. Obviously you're going to have to wait until the kittens are about eight weeks now, before having mother cat spayed.

And any vet that tells you have to wait until the kittens are six months, ignore.

salsagal

Hi OP,

I regularly do TNR, have access to traps and can advise re how to go about trapping and where to get it done at best cost.

If you've no luck with any local rescues, PM me and we can chat about it.

I'd be willing to help trap them, if I can't put you in touch with someone more local.

SG.

Demonique

Use a cat trap to catch the cat and bring her to a vet yourself to get neutered

Gosub

Can someone shed some light on this cat's strange behaviour? She seems to have delivered her litter some time on Tuesday. We thought we could follow her to where she had them and maybe rescue some from the cold. She's hanging around here a lot and is acting weird. We've searched high and low, but no sign of the new litter.

Around the time it became obvious that she was pregnant again, she started to reject her three kittens from earlier this year, now five months old. She growled, hissed and spat at them, physically batting them away with her paw. Since Tuesday she has returned to being the loving mother, even feeding them again. Needless to say, the kittens are overjoyed with this turn of fortunes. Even more weird though is that she has taken to trying to drag the kittens away with her to a shed we have set up for them. The kittens are nearly as big as she is and grabbing them by the neck and trying to carry them looks bizarre. She's extra aggressive to us, hissing and spitting more than usual.

Has she delivered her litter and left them to die? Has she delivered them stillborn? Is this why she has started acting this way? Are they still alive and well somewhere and we just don't see her sneaking off to look after them? And finally, how soon after giving birth can we capture her and get her neutered?

Any help/advice would be very welcome.
Thanks.

Edit: she's back to hissing and batting the kittens away this morning. Crazy mama.

SillyMangoX

Just after birth there is a big release of hormones that basically kick in the mothering instinct, it helps them bond with the babies. She had probably recently given birth, saw her former babies and thought that it was them she had given birth to - thus the grooming and feeding. As to what happened her new litter, I suppose we can only speculate on that since you haven't actually seen them. If indeed the new litter is safe and well you will need to wait until they are weaned before getting her spayed, so 6-8 weeks. Now she could get pregnant in this time, and as horrible as it sounds it may be better to get her done even if pregnant. She's already produced numerous kittens, you said the original litter had 4 with 3 surviving so at a guess she would have given birth to another 4-5 so think, that's 7 kittens, if not tamed correctly will become feral, now imagine each of those producing 7 kittens each in the space of 6 months.. before you know it you could end up with 40 kittens on your hands! And seeing as the original litter are now 5 months they should be neutered ASAP as they could even become sexually mature this early!

Gosub

Update: I found 1 dead kitten in a hedge near the shed where they get fed. He was huge for a newborn kitten. After a thorough search of the area, I can find no more.
The old litter are booked into a vet on Monday to be done (at an expense I could do without).

Thanks for your help with this. Any further advice will be appreciated.

gugleguy

Gosub wrote: »

Update:
The old litter are booked into a vet on Monday to be done (at an expense I could do without).

.

You've gone the extra countr mile alright OP

bada_bing

I know this is going to be a thorny subject but it raises the issue of whether people should feed feral cats as in this case the cat got pregnant again and abandoned her litter and produced more feral kittens. It just seems to be a vicious circle that will just repeat itself and end up with more kittens/feral cats suffering. I really do think that if people are going to feed feral cats, then they should take responsibility for the cat itself and have it neutered. is it better to feed one feral cat so that it can breed more helpless kittens that will be abandoned and suffer unnecessarily or just avoid feeding it altogether? i'm not attacking the op here, i'm just raising the question of whether it's the right thing to do or does it simply lead to more problems and misery for kittens??

boomerang

Sadly cats will get pregnant even if they are underweight, hungry and miserable.

Gosub

bada_bing wrote: »

I know this is going to be a thorny subject but it raises the issue of whether people should feed feral cats as in this case the cat got pregnant again and abandoned her litter and produced more feral kittens. It just seems to be a vicious circle that will just repeat itself and end up with more kittens/feral cats suffering. I really do think that if people are going to feed feral cats, then they should take responsibility for the cat itself and have it neutered. is it better to feed one feral cat so that it can breed more helpless kittens that will be abandoned and suffer unnecessarily or just avoid feeding it altogether? i'm not attacking the op here, i'm just raising the question of whether it's the right thing to do or does it simply lead to more problems and misery for kittens??

I do appreciate what you are saying, however, we chose to feed the female when she adopted us and we fully intended to get her neutered after her first litter. The 'expert' advice was that she wouldn't get pregnant while she was nursing her kittens and that she wouldn't get pregnant now that the warm weather is gone. Both seem to be wrong.

We have taken responsibility for the mother and her kittens and have booked vet time on Monday. If we can get the mother done at the same time, happy days. We will look after these four as much as they will let us.

Edit: just to add that at the beginning we thought the mother was a young male. We were never let close enough to determine sex. She just got fat on us.

The real problem is that feral animals are so far down the care ladder in this country that they will continue to be a problem. If some small funding was made available nationally for a proper TNR programme, the problem could be tackled and feral populations controlled. Sadly the animals have no votes and our political masters only care about themselves and their healthy pensions.

Sorry this turned into a bit of a rant, but if countries like Spain can do this right - and their lack of love for pets is legendary- then we should be able to do it just as well, if not better.

boomerang

You restore my faith in people

Gosub

Ok, this should be the final update.

We were only able to capture the two tamer ones for the first vet appointment. Even wearing welder's gloves proved to be insufficient protection from the other kitten and the mother was last seen scampering over a field!

We got a couple of traps from the local SPCA and trapped the two really wild ones yesterday. They were brought directly to the vet, done and returned to their 'home' last night.

We got them all treated for their various ailments while at the vet (more cost). This is all we can do for them at the moment. The mother and the big male kitten have lost a fair bit of what little trust they had for us, but I'm sure they will come around, in time.

Their payback is already obvious. No mice in the sheds!

aonb

dont let it be the final update! keep us posted on how you are doing
GREAT that you got two neutered at least - thats a lot less kittens fending for themselves in the future.
Any sign of the mother/older kitten yet? Hopefully they will come back for the food.
BROWNIE points to you for making such a huge effort.
I really believe that the personal satisfaction kind-hearted people like you, get from being good to an animal in trouble is paid back in some way - if nothing else a sense of making a small contriubtion to lessen animal cruelty and the peace of mind that comes with that

Gosub

aonb wrote: »

dont let it be the final update! keep us posted on how you are doing
GREAT that you got two neutered at least - thats a lot less kittens fending for themselves in the future.
Any sign of the mother/older kitten yet? Hopefully they will come back for the food.
BROWNIE points to you for making such a huge effort.
I really believe that the personal satisfaction kind-hearted people like you, get from being good to an animal in trouble is paid back in some way - if nothing else a sense of making a small contriubtion to lessen animal cruelty and the peace of mind that comes with that

No, that's them all done. The 2 half-tame ones were done over a week ago and the other 2 were done yesterday.

The reason this will be the final update is that I expect they will live a long and healthy life with us now, never having to fight for food and shelter.

boomerang

Don't worry, in my experience they will forgive you, they are just a bit unsettled as the whole trapping experience is like an alien abduction for them! And if anything, now they are neutered you may well find both males and females quickly become a little more tame!

Well done you