How to Foster a FERAL Mama and Kittens (10 Things You Should Know!)

hey everyone i'm sitting here with my new foster kittens it's a litter of five babies and they're very feral mama so i thought this would be the perfect opportunity to create an instructional video all about this topic so for this video my little models are kalu kalei brillig web and mimsy and their passionately feral mother mama tum-tum yeah i know we all know you're feral [Music] with their help i'm going to teach you 10 things you should know about taking care of a feral mama and her babies the first thing you should know is that a lot of the kittens you might think are orphans actually do have a mom these five kittens were found outside all alone and they were in really rough shape they were only about 24 hours old but they were scattered around a neighborhood covered in fleas and fly eggs i have a whole video all about taking them in and treating them for those issues they had with the fleas and the flies so you can watch that if you'd like but the point is they came here as orphans and they were in such bad shape you could assume that they didn't have a mom but we also know that kittens don't just fall out of the sky when there are kittens outside it's very likely that there is a mom nearby so in this case there was actually a rescue group that had been trapping cats in the neighborhood taking them in for spay and neuter on the day the kittens were found they also trapped 20 cats but they didn't know if one was the mama or not on the next day when those cats went into the clinic for spay neuter they were able to identify that one of the cats was postpartum that meant we were able to try to reunite the kittens and the mama exciting development i think we got the mom another example is that recently i found four kittens underneath a radiator in a neighborhood and i was able to catch the mom using a humane trap and reunite those babies together we just got four little babies but the good thing is we also got their mom so you can see this is the mom she's lactating she looks just like her babies look at her and her baby they look like very similar so if you find a kitten outside you do want to see if you can find the mama and reunite them i have a video all about trapping a feral mom using the kittens as vape so you can watch that video to learn all about how to find the mom lure her into a trap using the kittens and then safely bring them all into foster care staying with mom is best for everybody involved it's better for the kittens who get to have that wonderful nutrition from their mom they get the immune support the comfort it's great for the mama to be able to care for her babies as she naturally would have and it's so much better for you because you don't have to do the middle of the night feedings and all of the orphan care you take care of mama mama takes care of the babies the second thing i want you to know is yes mom cats can still lactate even after they've been spayed if you've trapped a community cat you're not necessarily going to know if they're lactating until they're already at the clinic at the clinic they're going to anesthetize the cat and then they're going to shave their tummy and prep them for surgery at that point they can say you know what this cat is lactating but of course by that point the cat is already under anesthesia and ready for surgery so the vet will proceed with the spend if you have kittens from the neighborhood you can try to reunite them if you don't have the kittens yet then you want to go outside and see if you can locate those kittens and if you can't you do want to return that mom as soon as she's bright and alert after surgery so she can return to her babies now once mama is reunited with her babies she still will lactate even though she has just been spayed this is a really common concern people have so i want to reassure you mom cats absolutely can still lactate even after they've had their sterilization surgery and the incisions that they do on these cats are so small especially when they're done at a tnr clinic you're gonna find that there's very low risk for infection but of course it is a good thing to keep an eye on any spay incision that's done whether it's on a feral mom or on your foster kitten now of course if you have a feral mama who has not yet been spayed don't worry about bringing her in for spay in a rush you want to bring her in once the kittens are around five weeks old and weaned the third thing you need to know is how to have a proper setup for a feral mom and babies if the cat's barrel trust me you don't want to just set her loose in your house she's gonna run around and climb into the ceiling and find places you didn't even know existed so we want to keep mama contained in general i like to use a big dog kennel this one is for an extra large dog which means there's plenty of space for everything inside you can put a nesting box which should be a half covered area where the mama feels a little bit protected but also like she has a good view of the rest of the area honestly i prefer something as simple as a cardboard box for this you can put a blanket or pad on the bottom of the box and hopefully she'll feel that this is a suitable place to take care of her babies and of course you also want to have a nice sized litter box for mama you also want to put out fresh water and a generous amount of kitten food mama cats need to eat large amounts of food and they should be fed kitten food which is higher in fat and protein and it's perfect for helping lactating cats her bowl is empty fill it back up give her as much food as she wants when it comes to water please note that you do want to use a really shallow dish neonatal kittens are not very coordinated and if they do squirm over and fall into a very deep dish of water that could be dangerous for them so use a shallow dish and just refill it often and try to keep it away from the baby's face most importantly you want to be able to cover the entire kennel in blanket visual stimuli is really stressful for a feral mama and the best thing you can possibly do for them is cover the kennel so they can focus on their own little zone do everything you can to make it a calm environment in terms of what they can see what they can hear and eat and what they can smell be sure to put their space in a room that no other animals have access to the presence of dogs or cats or even a lot of people is going to be upsetting to them and they're not as likely to take good care of their babies so let's just keep it nice and calm the fourth thing you should know is it can take 24 to 48 hours for a feral mom to accept her young are you gonna accept your babies let's see if we got the right mama okay look that's a baby is that one yours this one do you know these guys are those your babies don't panic if you reintroduce mom and babies and she totally rejects them at first it's a really stressful thing when a feral cat is taken inside they're thinking who are you why am i in a cage what is this place why am i taken away from the place that i'm comfortable am i safe am i going to be able to care for myself do i have food the cat is not thinking about the babies and i want to emphasize that doesn't mean that they're not a good mama cat i think sometimes we look at cats through this like anthropocentric lens where we're thinking about what we would do if we were them but we have to remember humans and cats have very different reproductive patterns as a species humans typically give birth to one baby at a time and we have a long gestation period of nine months cats have short gestation periods of about two months and they have large litter sizes of six or seven or eight so they have a lot of babies throughout their lifetime and as a species they've evolved not just to take care of this one precious baby they have evolved instead to have these large litter sizes where many of them are not going to survive and so you have to get into the mentality of a cat they're not thinking of i have to protect this one precious baby they're thinking once i know i'm safe then i'll go take care of these little babies i also want to clarify there's a difference between rejecting a baby and being aggressive towards a baby if you reintroduce a mama and her babies and she's showing violent or aggressive behaviors towards that baby then yes we want to remove the baby from the mom and not put the baby in harm's way but that's pretty rare most of the time cats are just gonna like ignore the baby for the first little bit when mama tum tum first came here she was like i don't want these babies what do you why i don't want to be here like what am i what am i doing here i don't want to be here and she sat like far away from the babies and you know hid her head and was just like grumbly grumbly grumbly but of course she was tense she had just had surgery she'd just been taken off the street she didn't know what was going on when a cat is really tense she's gonna sit upright and guard her belly and that means the kittens can't access the milk bar it sure would be cool if you would lay down and there's those babies but once she becomes a little bit more calm she will lay on her side and that gives the kittens the opportunity to root around and find a nipple once the kittens start nursing something really magical happens the mama's brain starts to release oxytocin which is going to make her feel much more loving and maternal and protective of those babies and what you'll see is over the first couple of days they might go from being totally disinterested to willingly participating and mothering to just absolutely adoring their babies so my advice is give it some time create that lovely calm environment and hey if after 72 hours she's like listen i just don't want to be a mom that's okay you can get her spayed you can return her to the home she knows and you can raise the babies on a bottle but i would give her up to those 72 hours to have the opportunity to try my fifth piece of advice is extremely important and that is you need to monitor and supplement the babies during this transition it's extremely important that you're monitoring your babies so that you know they're getting everything they need from mom obviously the first thing is to watch them and see if they are nursing but just because it looks like they're nursing doesn't mean that they actually are getting enough food from mom so you need to weigh them like you would if they were an orphan okay this baby is kalei and she is 108. brillig is the biggest he's 118. kalu is 106. single mama i know you don't like when i take your baby so take a look at the orphan kitten feeding chart this is how often i would be weighing and feeding my babies if they didn't have a mom at all what i would do with a feral mama is increase your time between these feedings by about 25 at first this is going to give the kittens enough time to get hungry and go nurse on mom but not so long that it's going to make them starving or hypoglycemic if they're not getting enough sustenance so for instance with these babies instead of weighing them every two hours i weighed them every two and a half hours and if their weight is going up i know i don't need to supplement with a bottle if it's steady then i want to keep monitoring for another feeding or two if their weight has dropped then i know i need to supplement with a bottle and keep in mind if they've been separated from mama for several days then it's possible she's not lactating quite as much as she normally would be so you're going to give her a chance to start having increased milk production with these babies it took about four or five days with mama before they didn't need any supplementing at all so i went from checking on them every two and a half hours to every three hours i just go in there weigh them make sure everything looks a-okay so you know a mom cat will typically lick her young to help them go potty but she doesn't seem to know exactly what to do yet so i'm still stimulating these guys to help them go potty you also want to make sure mom is actually licking them and grooming them and helping them go potty if she's not then you're going to need to stimulate them to go to the bathroom so as a general rule of thumb you do want to have all the supplies to take care of bottle babies even if they're with a mom because if they're on a downward trend you want to be able to help them out the sixth thing you need to know is how to safely handle the kittens and the mom if mom is feral remember socialization is a spectrum and there are cats way on the feral end of the spectrum and weigh on the friendly end of the spectrum right now we're talking about cats who are a little bit more on the feral side if mama is growling at you okay hissing at you i know if her ears are going down on the side of her head if she's staring at you and licking her lips if she's doing jump scares at you [Music] these are all signs that the mom is feral and feral is okay it's more than okay farrell is beautiful we love feral cats because these pharaoh mamas are strong sassy independent ladies who do not need no human to take care of them except that they do kind of need help with you know like opening the cans of food and like if you could scoop their litter that would be great yeah you know there is some care involved so you have to be able to get in there and handle the situation so how are we going to do this safely if you're doing a lot of work with feral cats i recommend getting a feral den feral den is an awesome piece of equipment it has a sliding door on the front so you can easily transfer that cat in and out of the kennel you can press the down against the side of the kennel so that you can get in there and clean they just make it really easy to use but if you don't have a feral den that's okay sometimes i use them sometimes i don't use them with this mama cat i just opened the trap and she walked into the nesting box but she had also just had surgery i knew she was a little bit groggy and not much of a flight risk if you need to get in there and clean it's usually pretty easy to do safely feral cats are not typically aggressors they're not going out and looking to start a fight with you they are avoidant which means they're only going to lash out if you're cornering them so what you want to do if you're cleaning in there is only clean the spot that she's not in if she's over there with her babies then you can go in and scoop the litter and change the food and sweep or if she's in the litter box or eating food now is your chance to go into the nesting box and change out the blankets every cat's different and every situation is different so if you want to be totally sure you're being safe then definitely grab a feral den or instead of using a feral den you could use a carrier now what about handling the babies well mama tum-tum is extremely protective of her young as most feral moms are once they've accepted their babies so i use my patented spatula technique which seems to work very well for me here we go come here baby kitten transport system okay there we go i use a spatula to scoop up the babies because it makes it a little bit easier to access them without putting my hand right next to her face the seventh thing i'm often asked about is what to do if mama needs medical attention what if mama is sick or needs an antibiotic are you gonna be able to get in there and give her an oral medication in her mouth no if it's a really feral cat it's unlikely you'll be able to do that since you're not able to touch the cat it can be a little bit of a challenge to give them treatments but it's not impossible if it is a non-urgent medical issue i recommend waiting until the kittens are weaned so then you can take mama in for her spay she can get vaccinated she can get any other medical issues she has addressed but of course if it's an urgent medical issue put her in a trap bring her to a clinic that can treat feral cats there are all sorts of things that vets can do like injectable antibiotics things that don't require continued handling of that feral cat in terms of treating for fleas mama tum tum was actually treated when she was spayed but if you have a cat who has really bad fleas and she's not being spayed yet something you can do is capstar capstar is a pill you can break up into the food and the mom can eat the food and get the flea treatment of course you want to talk to a vet anytime you're going to give a medication especially to a lactating cat because not all medications are going to be safe for the babies if a cat is lactating so talk to your bed the eighth thing you need to know is taming a feral mom is not the goal of fostering a feral mama with babies this is definitely the number one question i get are you gonna tame the mom is the mom gonna be friendly are you gonna adopt the mom out listen i get it i know you love your cat and you want every single cat in the world to experience the feeling of being a friendly cat on the couch snuggling up against someone but guess what not every cat wants that a huge number of cats in the united states are community cats and feral cats these cats they don't really want to be in your house it is never my goal to tame an adult feral cat and i'll tell you why the socialization window is most open between 0 and 12 weeks of age after 12 weeks that window starts rapidly closing now is it impossible to socialize an adult feral cat it depends on the cat and the situation every single time i post something about a feral cat i get comments like well i took in a feral cat and three years later i can finally tucked her on the head well that's very nice but i don't have three years to give every single feral cat that i encounter an opportunity to maybe want to be touched on the head someday nor do i think it's particularly ethical for me to try to do so when we bring these cats inside we are traumatizing them it's very terrifying for them to be indoors and there's no reason for us to put them through that for one second longer than it takes for them to care for their babies they genuinely can't wait to go back home from an organizational standpoint it's also not a good use of resources every time i say that i'm gonna be returning a feral cat to her colony someone in the comments says well i follow an organization that socializes those cats well it's true there are some organizations that decide to put their resources towards that but i can tell you most organizations who are located in the southern part of the united states that is not our goal at all we have a constant influx of cats and kittens pouring into our shelter system and it is absolutely overwhelming to shelters rescues foster parents volunteers all of us need to be prioritizing very carefully in order to be strategic we need to be putting our resources into saving those cats who truly do not have another place to go the shelter doesn't need more cats rescue groups don't need more cats i don't need more cats there's not even enough adopters for all of the cats that we already have so going around and trying to scoop up every feral cat and turn them into an adoptable feline is definitely not the goal of progressive forward-thinking animal welfare in the united states you see a cat like mama tum tum has a place to go because she's from a colony it always cracks me up when people are like are you gonna release her into the wild because i'm like where do you think she's from she's from downtown san diego she's not from the wild i'm gonna return her so she's returned she's not just like released she's returned to the home she knows i can tell you for her you know she's from a neighborhood where there's multiple people feeding the cats every day so we're not like just putting cats outside she's she's got a home she's from the outdoors and she doesn't want to be inside now if your feral mama really for some reason cannot be returned to the place she's from there are other options you could try a barn home or a working cat situation i do have a video all about how to safely transition a feral cat into a barn home so you can watch that for some advice but please please stop trying to force socialization on adult feral cats it's not just scary for the cat and a bad use of our resources but in some cases it is a killer to these cats because a lot of these cats really truly never will warm up and now you've got a cat you can't return and you can't adopt out and what are you gonna do then please don't do this respect the feral in the feral cat for the ninth thing you need to know no the babies are not going to be feral and yes they can be adopted sometimes people are scared that if the mom's feral that means the babies are going to be feral but feral behavior is not a biological trait that's inherited by the young it's all about the individual experiences of the kitten did you know that all kittens are born feral it's true these babies will hit at anything new they hissed at andrew's toothpaste he doesn't like the mint oh he doesn't like your toothpaste or like the smell of my new hand soap so i just used a new hand soap and kalei can smell the hand soap she doesn't recognize that smell so she's letting me know hey i'm very fierce anything that's unfamiliar to a kitten they're gonna hiss at and then through experience they become more familiar with things and they're not scared of them anymore no more hissing mama cat is feral because she was not handled by humans at a young age but these babies have been handled by me since the second their stinky little butts walked in this place these babies are gonna love humans so all that you need to do to make sure your babies are social is handle them multiple times a day scoop them up from mom kiss them pet them love on them and let them know that humans are awesome we're safe you know they want to be friends with us as the kittens get older and more independent from mama that's when we're going to really fast track them for socialization and adoption which leads me to the 10th and final thing you need to know and that is how to plan your timeline properly i really don't want you to hold on to a feral mama for any longer than you need to for a couple reasons one that mama does not want to be indoors she's counting the days until she can be returned to the place that she's comfortable two your kittens need time away from mama so that they can properly socialize and three trust me after a couple weeks of caring for mama you're gonna be ready for her to go home too so here's the timeline that you should plan on plan to set an appointment for mama to have her spay surgery right around the time that the kittens are five weeks old that's the age that they're going to be eating independently and it's a great time for mama to get her spay and then get on her way mama's gonna go in for her appointment where she'll be spayed she'll be vaccinated and she'll be ear tipped the ear tip is a sign that she's been through the program so if anyone sees her outside they can know that cat is spayed she's not gonna be having any more babies once the kittens are about five weeks old this is the perfect chance for you to give them that delicious solid food you're going to be playing with them you're going to be struggling with them the kittens are going to start seeing you as their best friend and once the kittens are over eight weeks they themselves can be spayed or neutered and placed into their loving homes and you're gonna feel so good knowing that everyone is exactly where they're meant to be babies get their homes the mama gets to go back to the place that she is comfortable and you get to take a deep breath knowing that you changed things forever for the babies for the mom and for the community because that mom's not going to be having any babies out there anymore so there you have it i hope that those 10 tips are helpful to you if you are fostering a feral mom with babies this is really the direction we ought to be going in in animal welfare doing everything we can to connect moms and babies back together so thank you for watching do

Channel: Kitten Lady

Views: 1,129,955

Keywords: kitten, kitten lady, cat, orphan, orphaned, baby, neonatal, infant, newborn, found, find, kittens, rescue, adopt, rescued, foster, fostering, help, how to, what do i do, how do i, cats, animal, hannah shaw, animal planet, feed, pee, poop, babies, shelter, cute

Id: VPGwB_f4L0A

Length: 26min 25sec (1585 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 03 2020