What is the age of your pregnant cat? If under a year, or older than eight years, your cat will not have an easy time with birthing, and the possibility of deformed kittens is increased. Pregnancy is normally about 60-65 days long. In cases of large litters, length is usually lessened. In cases of a small litter number, length may increase.
If you think your cat might be pregnant, the first check her nipples. These become more prominent and pinker by three weeks of gestation. By four to five weeks after conception, your vet will be able to feel golf-ball sized swellings in her abdomen. At this time the developing fetuses are usually quite easy to count. Shortly afterward, her belly becomes a visibly enlarged.
Schedule an appointment with your veterinarian as soon as you find out your cat is pregnant or if you suspect your cat might be pregnant. Your veterinarian will give your cat a check up to see if she is healthy and tell you how far along she is. Feline pregnancy lasts about 65 days, but like humans can be slightly shorter or slightly longer. Unless your cat suffers injury or illness, you will not need veterinarian assistance again.
Regular exercise and walks will help your pregnant cat keep her muscle tone and general health. Obesity is potential danger in pregnant cats when delivery time comes so control any tendency to fatness with exercise and careful attention to her revised caloric needs. It is much safer to restrict diet before the cat becomes pregnant than after. During the final three weeks of pregnancy the mother should be separated from other cats in the household as well as cats from outside the family.
Poor diets may cause problems with the developing fetuses and with the queen. She should have been on a premium adult food prior to pregnancy and for the first few weeks of pregnancy. Starting the fourth week of pregnancy, begin adding a premium kitten food to her diet. Each week increase the amount of the kitten food, so when she is in her final week of pregnancy, she is on all kitten food. Increase the frequency of the daily meals to three by mid-pregnancy or free feed her. She may need to eat small meals every 3-4 hours during the last week of the pregnancy as the kittens continue to take up more room. Remember that most fetal growth occurs in the last two weeks of gestation.
Prepare a room for the birth to occur. This room should have an impervious floor that makes cleaning easy. It should not be drafty and should be in a quite area of the home. Prepare a bed for the cat, a laundry basket lined with towels or unused clothes works well. Get her used to using it. If the mother won’t stay in it, you can encourage her to by petting her and giving her small food snacks. You can lead her to the designated nursing area when labor begins but don’t expect her to stay there. She will almost certainly have her kittens outside of the pre-assigned area, let her.
When she has completed the delivery, move them all into the designated bed. Cats don’t like to be bothered when they are having their kittens. There is no need for you to spend time comforting her. After the birth of the first few kitten, the mother usually is preoccupied with her babies and not as upset at your presence. Give her the space she needs, but keep checking in on her regularly. It is quite possible that you will miss the birth process entirely. You will probably wake up one morning or return from work only to find you have a brand new litter of offspring contentedly nursing on their mom. If your nursery room is not warm enough, you can warmer it by wrapping a heating pad in a towel, setting it on “low,” and placing it under one half of the nursery bed. This allows the mother and kittens to move away from the heat source if they choose to.
