This is the most frequently asked question by cat owners. After all, you want to know how long it’s going to be before you need to start worrying about the birth!
Do you have the faintest notion at all? Perhaps you have already experienced your cat being pregnant before. One thing is for sure, knowing the length of a cat’s pregnancy won’t help at all unless you know the date when she mated with her chosen suitor.
Generally speaking, your cat keeps that information to herself!
Just when you think that your life is running smoothly, your pet cat comes home with more than she went out with….. So you thought that all that loving behavior and cute rolling around she’s been doing lately was just for your benefit? She’s been coming into season and was practising her seduction technique for every Tom, Dick or fur-covered Harry that will pass her way.
And now, quite suddenly, you have this niggling feeling that you are going to be a grandparent to a litter of kittens and have no idea just how soon they might be arriving. So, how soon will your cat’s new little kittens be born?
On average, feline pregnancy lasts for 63-65 days but can be anywhere from 58 days to 70 days long. In ‘real money’, that’s around nine weeks. But as chief midwife-in-waiting, unless you have a good idea when your promiscuous puss-cat was consorting with the local toms, you will only be able to make a rough guess at the expected delivery date.
It’s far more usual not to have any idea that your beautiful, pregnant cat is ‘with kittens’ until she is 35-42 days into her 65 day pregnancy and starts to show certain signs. By the time you begin to suspect that you need to know how long feline pregnancy lasts, more than half of it will have passed by.
If you know your cat well, you may have noticed a definite pinking up of your cat’s nipples. Her milk glands are the first part of her body to undergo changes in readiness for full-scale milk production and this will happen after just 3 weeks into pregnancy.
Around the same time, your cat may go off her food. Could it be puss-cat morning sickness perhaps?
Mind you, most cats go through phases of turning their furry noses up at whatever choice morsels you place in front of them, so it’s highly unlikely that you associate a lack of appetite with pregnancy at this stage.
Unless you have experienced a previous pregnancy with your cat, it is highly unlikely that you will attach any significance to these subtle changes. It will be around weeks five and six that you will become certain that your lovely pet is expecting kittens and by this time, you will only have 21-28 days to go before they are born.
Of course, as a loving and responsible cat owner, you will feel that it is your duty to make sure that you are fully prepared to help your cat give birth safely and calmly. It is up to you to arm yourself with the knowledge you will need to care for your newborn kittens and their mother to the best of your ability by finding a comprehensive ebook that will easily guide you through all the stages of pregnancy, labor, birth and nursing.
But above all, just enjoy the thought that very soon you will become a kitten grandparent!
