People tend to get excited about kittens. And rightly so; the’re adorable. They seem miraculous; how something merely a few inches long, with damp wrinkly ears, eyes shut fast, and bodies so frighteningly vulnerable to temperature change can possibly survive is amazing.
Kitten season, for us, normally occurs in the spring. This spring, within days of retrieving our first three pregnant moms, there were fifteen newborn kittens at the sanctuary.
Honey
What people might not know is that those three moms were just out of kittenhood themselves. “Teen mothers”, so to speak. Cats can get pregnant the first time they go into heat. This can happen anywhere between four to six months old. A cat that young still looks more like a kitten than it does an-adult cat. And they can go into heat within three or four weeks again, even after recently giving birth!
Joy
These springtime moms; Honey, Joy, and Cappuccino, came to us from a colony of eleven cats that might have sprung from a mere two cats at the outset. Add the fifteen new kittens, another heat for their nursing moms, and any other colony females to be impregnated, and there could have been a population explosion by mid-summer.
Cappucino
Fortunately, we were able to bring the moms – and the entire colony – in before things escalated.
4 of the other relatives from the 11 rescued (Chris, Glory, Frappuccino, Marmalade)
It’s hard to see young cats, frightened and unsure, suddenly faced with a motherhood their bodies are just barely prepared for. We have mourned stillbirths and tiny, unviable kittens born too early from moms whose bodies were too small to support them, or kittens whose immune systems aren’t fully developed, who struggle with illnesses because their still-growing mothers weren’t strong enough to give them the boost they needed.
Sometimes the moms seem to barely know what is happening! Cappuccino was so alarmed and unsure during and after labor that she initially hid her babies instead of staying to nurse them. It was only with the intervention of the Sanctuary Director, gently supporting her head and encouraging her, that she allowed them to latch on.
The kittens aren’t the only feeding concern either. At the sanctuary we feed the moms constantly. They are voracious – they eat, nurse, groom the kittens, then sleep, eat again – and they are always ready for a snack. It appalls me to imagine these cats having to hunt, or forage for food if they were living homeless somewhere. How could they possibly get enough to support themselves and their families? As it is, by the time the kittens are near weaning, most of the moms we rescue have lost significant weight and are in grave need of support to help them recover. And that is with shelter, warmth, and constantly available food, as well as human kitten-sitters eagerly at their disposal.
One of the babies
Those fifteen kittens, born on three consecutive days, have now all found homes, and will get to be carefree as they mature into beautiful cats. Cappuccino was also adopted, and Honey and Joy await their own special someones to choose them. Meanwhile, they have gotten to catch up on some of the adolescence they missed, learning to relax and play themselves now that they don’t have kittens to supervise.
One of the babies
And that was just the start of the spring rush. Summer brought numerous more kittens our way – some born on site, some brought to us with a mom, some tragically orphaned. The last few years – including this fall, as you read this – even as we head into colder weather, Critteraid is still getting calls about kittens in need of rescue. Kitten season has become an all year occurrence.
One of the babies
I find myself thinking of the other lovely litters of kittens awaiting adoption at the sanctuary even now; of the two families of kittens recently rescued from living outside, who are still learning that they are safe with us; of the little ones we have rescued this fall and entrusted to foster care. So many kittens who will need homes, while there are so many more we are unable to help. We are all aware that the days and nights are growing ever colder, and kittens – like human babies – are more susceptible to the cold, to hunger, to the challenges of living without the support of people and the homes domesticated cats are accustomed to.
Kitten season is associated with springtime, but we are coming up on November with no end in sight.
Please spay and neuter your cats. The benefits are farther reaching than you might imagine.
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