Why would a mother cat leave a kitten behind?
My cat had kittens about 3 days ago. It was a litter of five, and she's a relatively young and small cat. I live in an apartment, and the room she had them in gets kinda cold, so I go in and check on them, but really no one has bothered them. She doesn't stay in there with them a whole lot, so I always check to make sure they are cuddling and its not too cold in the room. Today I was sitting in the living room and I kept hearing one cry. Finally about 20 minutes later I went in to see what was wrong and it was laying there by itself crying for its momma. I found her later in another location of the room nursing the rest of the kittens. I realized that she'd moved the kittens, but the kitten had been crying for almost a half hour, and when I found her it didn't seem like she was too concerned that it was over there crying. I brought the kitten over and placed it in the litter with the rest and pet Yoru (the mother cat). The little one immediately began nursing. I went back into the living room, but a couple minutes later I heard it start crying again. I walked into the room to find it was laying on the floor by itself. I picked it back up and placed it in with the litter. About 10 minutes later Yoru came out and sat on the couch with me. I'm not sure whats going on here. When China had her litter, she was with them all the time and took care of them. It seems Yoru only goes in there to nurse them and then most the time she's left them alone. And now she seems to not like this one kitten. Does anyone have any idea what could be going on here? Could it be she's just not maternal? Like I said, she's really young. I'm not sure how old she is, I took her in after my sister found her under a dumpster. Ideas are greatly appreciated. :)
Cats - 3 Answers
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1 :
It could be one of two reasons. One as a young mother, she may not be very experienced. The other reason is that she senses a problem with the kitten, and feels it will not survive. If that is the case, you will have to be much more watchful, and continue to move the kitten back with her to give the kitten a chance. And if that kitten seems to be getting into trouble, intervention by a vet would be important.
2 :
cuz it wanted to
3 :
I have never seen a cat reject a single kitten out of a litter, but many breeds of animals reject their offspring for unclear reasons. I think sometimes they sense something wrong and don't want to waste milk on them. Or sometimes the individual baby nurses in a way that hurts. It could be that when the cat moved the litter she got distracted by the four crying and just stayed with them. It could be that the one has a sensory problem and wanders off. I would keep putting the baby back and try to get the mom to feed her - she might eventually give it up. Today we had one kitten of a litter of 6, about 2 weeks old, fall down a 5 foot deep hole. I couldn't reach her , and to get her mother to go down after her, we had to take the rest of the kittens away so she couldn't hear or find them. When they were gone, she could attend to the baby in the hole and she went right down after her. My daughter, who plays with the kittens frequently said she was not surprised that this particular kitten wandered off and fell down the hole.
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