Tiny pregnant cat... due right before I am!

[trmpetplaya]

I have a little cat (she's over a year old and generally weighs just under five pounds), Aria, who was the runt of her litter. We just yesterday became sure that she is expecting kittens. According to our not very precise calculations, she should be due sometime in the middle of October. I'm due at the beginning of November :LOL This should be an interesting next two months at our house...

Should we be concerned about her small stature? She's about 3-4 weeks along now.

Also, should we make special preparations for my birth? We were planning on having our neighbours take Aria when I go into labour because she's part siamese and would drive me off the wall meowing (and boy can she project!) while I'm trying to have a baby... can we just send her and the kittens over to the neighbours as we had originally planned? As long as it's okay with them, of course

Thanks!

love and peace.

[Bia]

hi... I rescued a pregnant kitten who was about six months old and around 6 lbs. when she gave birth... she did well. Her kittens had some minor genetic issues, but I think that was probably due to her age, not her size. If I were you, I'd ensure the kitty was getting an excellent quality diet, like raw food or Felidae brand food. No advice re: moving them, but good luck!

[Bia]

sorry, just saw your post in another thread about her diet. You didn't need my advice on that!

[baby*by*the*sea]

We took in a stray 5 years ago and were we surprised when we took her to the vet to find out she was preggo! She was approx. 6 months at the time and got PG during her first heat. She was sooo tiny and I was a little nervous about her giving birth. It was kind of funny looking at a tiny cat with a huge belly...any way...she did fine giving birth to her kittens. As a matter of fact it was their birthday on Sept. 12. It was an awesome experience watching the kittens being born...a little queasy watching her eat the placenta..

My advice about moving them....as long as you can get your mommy cat to give birth in a box or a basket, I think you will be ok moving the whole shebang, box, mommy, babies. If not then mommy cat will probably freak out when she is in an unfamiliar place with her babies. She trusts you and your home. I think the stress of moving her to an unfamiliar place during the early stages of her mommyhood would be a bad idea...our mommy cat did not leave the basket where she gave birth ever! Only to go to the litter box. We kept her food and water in the closet with her birthing basket. You may be surprised in the fact that your mommy cat will most likely be more concerned with her new babies then your new baby.

P.S. It was so hard giving the kittens away... We ended up keeping two of them. I lost it giving one away...I couldn't do it to the others.

[supernatural]

I too had a baby around the same time as my momma kitty. If I were you, I would just pick a nice quiet, relatively darkish place to put a box/bed for her that's not anywhere near where you will be laboring. If her kittens are still very small, I doubt she'll care much about what you're doing anyway, she'll be too busy! I'd start putting her into the box once in a while in the last few weeks of her pg to help her understand what its for, and if she starts her labor elsewhere, move her there.

One litter of kittens at our house was born in the back of my closet. No matter what I did or where I put the box, Momma moved them back to the closet. I would worry that moving mom and babies to the neighbors, even overnight, might cause momma to get nervous and move/hide the babies in a not-so-acceptable place. JMO