Hi any advice would be greatly appreciated. A very pregnant stray has adopted me and my family, we are happy to let her to stay as she looks like she will give birth soon and want her to be safe and warm and well fed! Unfortunately i dont know alot about cats!!! so here are my questions-

1) how long until the kittens can go to new homes? unfortunately we cant give them all homes i hear they usually have 4-6ish babies??
2) do we have to get the kittens vaccinated etc or can they go without all this? and when should vaccinations be done
3) obviously we want to get mum spayed ASAP to stop this happening to her again and creating more kittens needing homes, i have been told she can get spayed when the babies are ready to go, but surely if she goes out shes at risk of getting pregnant again so does she have to stay in for 6/8 weeks however long it is ?? shes quite a wanderer and doesnt like being shut up im just not sure how this is going to work!!

thankyou to anyone that can help, wish me luck im very nervous about this labour :S

sorry, i dont know about cats, but well done you for taking her in, i am sure you will be fine

Hi, first, are you absolutely sure this cat is homeless? Do please take her to the vet to be scanned for a microchip (that shouldn't cost you anything) and put a "found" ad in the local paper (again, usually free)

Assuming you have done these and are sure she really is a stray, then the answers are as follows:

The norm for rehoming moggies is 8 weeks, please don't let them go any earlier than this. Pedigrees go at 13 weeks fully vaccinated which is best for everyone if you can do it but it is very unusual for moggies to get treated as well as that. Vaccinations are done at 9 and 12 weeks. One big advantage of keeping the kittens this long is that Mum is unlikely to come into call again while she is still feeding ktitens - and they will happily feed for as long as she will let them. Also it is unlikely that Mum will call in the Autumn, but I have known them call right at the end of December.

She needs to lose her milk before she is spayed, once you get to January you should certainly watch out for signs of calling especially if we have a warm spell (which does happen occasionally in January). The combination of warmer weather plus lengthening days is enough to set many girls calling. Obviously if there is any question of calling you must keep her in. The good news is that if there are any entire males around at all, they will know she is about to call before you do and act as a sort of early warning system so, if you are vigilant, you should avoid any accidents. But it does take vigilance. The safest option obviously is to confine the cat from the first warm spell after the end of December until she has been spayed. Another option (which is what I have done in the past when I had a girl I wanted spaying and needed to be sure she was not pregnant) is simply to ask your vet for Ovarid and give her 1/4 tablet every three weeks starting from when the kittens are about six weeks old until you get her spayed - you will only need one tablet.

Liz

yes sorry i should have said i have taken her to vets, no microchip, and have put some ads about, left my details at vets etc no one has come forward she may have another house she goes to though i dont know, but seems to be here alot more than she is away! thankyou very much for all your help

If you're not sure that she doesn't have another home, put a collar on her next time you let her out, with your contact details in an identity barrel. She may very well belong to someone. If she still goes home on a daily or even two-daily basis, her owners may not even have missed her, which is why they won't have been trying to find her. This happened to me once, some years ago, the cat concerned was being bullied by another and she went and found herself another home but was still turning up at my home on a daily basis. The first I knew about the second home was when she went missing for three days and then turned up spayed! To say I was angry would be a serious understatement, I wanted to breed from her! Needless to say, it was at that point that I began microchipping all my cats!

Liz

So stillllll waiting for these kittens!!! i was convinced it would be last night or the night before but still nothing. she cant get much bigger she is MASSIVE. but still eating like a horse. Arent they meant to lose their appetite? shes only been going out for a few mins at a time so obviously staying close (no sign of another home then!) this waiting is horrible!!

Actually she's probably not that near. A couple of days before the birth, the shape changes, the kittens drop and are carried lower down, and the visual effect is that the cat looks less pregnant. The best warning sign is that she starts looking for a nest - when that happens you are looking at an hour or two before labour starts. Not all cats stop eating, though many do.

Liz

oh ill have to look out for that then. Its only because the last few days she has been hunting around our house going in all the hidey holes so i thought it would be happening soon. Iv got her onto kitten food now so shes getting all the extra goodness.