Hi all,
My cat gave birth to 5 babies, just over 5 weeks ago, although shes eating well she has got so thin she looks skeletal.
I can feel her spine ,shoulders and she has no fat covering at all.
She seems fine in herself and is still producing milk, but i was wondering how early can i seperate her from her babies.
They are all on solid food and using the litter tray, but would i cause any behavioural problems in the future by seperating them early.
My neighbours cat had kittens and they were in there new homes at 6 weeks, i will be keeping them untill 13 weeks anyway, but do you think they would be ok without mom this early?
Thanks in advance jenny xx

If i were you i would keep babies with mum as long as possible,feed mum kitten food(good quality)this will help build her up,also you could give her a kitten milk substitute,i have kittens here that are 4 months old,and 9 weeks old and still with mum,both mums were skinny but are now filled out nicley despite still feeding.I used to seperate at 8 weeks but now know its to early,so i intend to keep untl they are at least 12 weeks old.The longer they are with mum the better they will be for it.I feed royal canin kitten 34 to all my cats,when kitts are tiny they have royal canin baby cat.

Thanks clare,
Ive been feeding her james wellbelloved kitten dry and whiskas pouches, also steamed coley, sardines, mince beef and tuna. Also a calcium supplement. I feel sorry for queens that have more than 5.
Iwas giving her cimicat milk but it gives her a runny tum. i suppose as long as she seems well in herself it would be better to keep them together for as long as poss.

One of mine gets a bad tum with that too!im sure she`ll pick up soon its early days still yet

Five weeks is too young to take the mum away from the babies unless there is a really good reason for doing it.

But if she's that thin perhaps revisit at six weeks or seven - she's not likely to recover that weight whilst she's still in with the babies. Make sure all of the babies are fully weaned, including drinking from the water bowl, before you do - otherwise you may find yourself syringe feeding.

I find my mums are trying to get away from their babies at around six or seven weeks. If they are penned perhaps leave mum out overnight to mooch about and feel a bit like her old self again?

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If that were my queen with babies, I would be just feeding the queen good quality kitten food, high in nourishments/calories etc and keep babies with her for about another week or so until the little ones are weaned. Encourage weaning if you can and then, as SavannahKitten advised, separate the kittens from the mum.

I would do this for a couple of hours then three, then four, until the children are used to being without their mum for a bit each day (or night). This gives the queen a bit of "me-time" .

Hope things go well. Keep babies with mum for a bit longer if you can.

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Ra

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

Thanks all for your advice, there not far off being weaned now, there eating ,most of them are drinking and they do all there wee's an poo's in the litter.There not penned by the way, there having loads of fun destroying my bedroom.
She only had 2 kittens last year so she didnt drop too much weight, they are 5 big kittens so they must be sucking the life out of her. poor thing!
Heres a pic of them 4u