by Jill
(Fort Frances)

Hi, Dr. Neely,

My cat gave birth last night. She would not move off the BRAND new couch, so we put down plastic and a blanket and she had them there. Today we moved her and the babies with the blanket, and now she is acting strange and looking like she is trying to hurt one of them.

Is her behavior a result of our moving her?
Can we do anything to stop her?

Hi, Jill

It was probably the move as well as your scent on the kittens. I would suggest you try without touching the kittens to put things back where they were and leave her alone for a day or two with no noise and a dimly-lit atmosphere. Give her plenty of food to eat and talk very affectionately to her and give her attention by petting her on the head and act as if you're ignoring the kittens.

Of course, if one is looking sick or injured, you won't ignore that. You may have to take it away from her and bottle feed the kitten which is not the best, but is sometimes necessary.

Often, the mom will move each kitten to a new location and if she does that, try to let her stay there even if it's in a place in the house you would really prefer it not to be. It won't be that long until they're stronger and slightly older and she's more comfortable and they can be where you want them to be.

In other words, let Mom make all the decisions for a few days unless of course she is really ignoring a kitten and it's not nursing or if she is hurting it, which is really unusual. It's more common that she might ignore one, but not hurt it.

Good luck and write if you have further questions.

Thank you,
Dr. Neely