Help!

[maggie2101]

A very long time ago a cat I had that ate one of her newborn kittens. The kitten was born dead and after a short time she ate it. It was not something I ever want to witness again.

[FiveHorses]

Originally Posted by Garden of Eden

I have only seen a Mamma Cat abandon her kitten, but I have never seen one eat a kitten. Thank you for educating us!

YIKES! Noooooo. My English was poorly phrased - it should have read or been interpreted as " I've never heard of a Momma Cat eating her dead kitten." But as stated, some one has seen it, so I guess it does happen. No, it would not be something you'd want to ever have to witness. Mother dogs do it certainly, I've just never heard of it in cats.

Ref the "infanticide" - what I meant was that they will do things, one can only assume knowingly, that will cause death if a mother cat senses something wrong with the kitten. Toms will slaughter wholesale to bring the queens back into breeding (ie, in the event of a takeover by a new tom) - Mommas don't do that, but they will purposefully abandon, neglect or - as witnessed with our wee Annabelle - drag two pretty young (guess was about three weeks of age, about the time when defects would become apparent) kittens out into the open during a deluge. This particular Momma cat took them out to the middle of a yard (two separate trips), and then went to sit on a back porch, out of the wind and rain, and watch.

It was quite extraordinary - the mother cat was perfectly correct. Although an accurate diagnosis was never made on one of the two (who died shortly thereafter), Annabelle who later on came into my car was diagnosed with the most severe case of cardiomyopathy my feline vet had seen in 24 years of practice.

I've never had a cat that had kittens, but I've had other animals that have lost their young. I think the longest I've personally experienced a mother seriously pine and look for Baby was three solid days; by day four, it started to wane. Those were three very long days. Baby died and we allowed Mom to stay with her for ... must have been a good eight or so hours before we removed her. I'm not sure it made any difference one way or the other quite frankly. Mom just wasn't going to accept Baby was gone until she'd gone through whatever process she needed to go through. It was just heartbreaking.

[Garden of Eden]

Some of what I have witnessed with Mother Nature, is heartbreaking and so difficult to accept. There is something in some of us humans, that need to rescue, to help, to heal, and then to see a mother deliberately abandon one of her newborns, goes against all sense within us. I have a huge mother's heart, and coming to know cats as I have over the years, still don't know how these mamma cats can abandon the weak, even though I know there is a love bond there. You talk about tough love. Instinct......goes beyond our comprehension as humans. Could we ever abandon our own newborn baby knowing it was very ill? No, at least not me. I've never quite adjusted to the "cruelty" I have seen with nature, yet, as stated here in this thread, only the strong survive in the wild. And for good reason.

[PantherPride]

The best thing to do is spay her, if thats just not possible even if you try a free animal control spay/neuter service, have a vet put her down... a feral cat lives a short hard life and nobuddy wants a cat that scratches people. You'll be saving untold thousends of cats from living a hard violent life and protecting home-outdoor cats from contracting deadly diseases like FIV or feline luek.


sometimes thats all we can do, but I'm sure theres a free fixing services avaible somewhere in your community. You might have to be disabled or really low income to qualfy though.