Hello Tilly - glad Kestra is over the worst of it now - just the hard slog of feeding her little ones.

To answer your questions - I can only say what I have observed in my own queens so am not claiming to be an expert. The earliest I have seen kitten eyes opening in my queens' babies is 5 days and the latest is 8 days. There will be others who can report different numbers of days.

As for afterbirths, more often than not, I have seen them arriving a few seconds or even minutes afterwards but there have been some kits whose afterbirths arrived an hour later with a younger sibling (ie, an afterbirth followed by a kitten followed by "his" afterbirth). The main thing is that you can count an afterbirth for each kitten.

Sometimes a queen decides she would rather like to eat an afterbirth - yes it sounds yucky - but I let them eat one or two, so long as I have seen it, then I don't worry about whether it is still in her uterus.

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best purrs

Ra

http://www.bobergsiamese.co.uk/

Goes to show how stupid i am, as i didnt even think that they would each have an afterbirth....was thinking it was just one large one at the end!!

I didn't see an afterbirth with the first two kitts but she was definately eating something after each one. The third and fourth i saw and she ate those too!!
She seems very content but finding im having to take food to her as she wont leave the box! Not that i mind, i just want Kestra to be happy and healthy along with her babies.

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Tilly.xx

Congratulations! I can un-cross my swollen fingers now......

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"Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will pee on your computer." --Bruce Graham
There are no rules, rules are only for people who fit inside a box, if you want to think out of the box there is no hope... Life has no Box. (Tony Howells)

Congratulations, Grandma!