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(Photo of my brother's cat Zoey taken in November 2002. Here she was still nursing her kittens, then two months old. She's a very pretty cat! I took this picture myself when Zoey and the kittens and my brother were up visiting me and my parents at their house. A litter of kittens is sometimes called a kindle.) The first thing I will do on this page is to tell how to take care of your queen while she is pregnant. I will use my family's own personal experiences here (since I believe that we have done everything the correct way!) First of all it was my fault that Zoey got pregnant in the first place. We weren't planning on having any kittens, but for the first few years of Zoey's life (she was born in August 2000) she and my brother lived by themselves in a very small apartment. Since she was not spayed, and my brother lived in a neighborhood where the traffic was fierce, Zoey couldn't go outside or have any freedom at all to stretch her legs and even have a run. So when my brother visited my and my parents house to help build a shed (we live in an area which is like a heaven on earth for pets) I suggested to him that we let Zoey off the leash for a while to have at least a few hours of freedom. After a few days of this, unknown to us, she came into heat. That day, at sunset, my brother was ready to go home, but he couldn't find his puss anywhere! D'OH! We thought about the possibility that she might be out somewhere losing her virginity, and finally my brother said that he didn't really care if she had kittens, he just wanted her to come back safe and sound. Well she was away for four days, and when she did come back my brother was again at my house to meet her there (which was so nice). My brother was so happy to get her back because he loves his cat to death. Later I showed my brother some pictures of mothers with their babies and my brother started to like the idea of what he called "I'd like to have a couple of cute little Zoeys running around the place." I was excited about a potential pregnancy, even though I definitely did NOT plan it. I honestly had NO idea she was in heat, or was about to be, when I told my brother to let her run free off her leash for a while. Next, how do you tell if your queen is pregnant? Well, you could get a confirmation from the veterinarian, but this costs money. If you don't have much money, don't do this because you don't have to. The queen's body will start showing the signs of being pregnant approximately three weeks after conceiving, and she will be pregnant for a little over two months (this is called the gestation period). How did we find out that Zoey was pregnant? About three weeks after she had come back from being away, my brother brought her up to our house for a visit and said "I think she's pregnant, because her breasts are getting fuller, bigger, and pinker, and they're popping out." And it turned out that she was pregnant. This is the first sign of a pregnancy- the enlargement and pink coloring of the queen's breasts. She will get fat, very fat, and look like a fat cow or a big bubble that's reacdy to burst. Don't mistake this for the cat simply being overweight and needing to go on a diet- at this time she will actually need to eat MORE, LOTS more, because she will be eating for more than just herself (queens are capable of having litters of NINETEEN kittens, so imagine how much food she will have to eat in order to feed TWENTY- nineteen plus one- herself!) You don't really need to take special care of her until about the end of the second month of pregnancy. Some tips: Make sure she has grass availiable to chew on. If you want to pick her up in your arms, don't grab her around the belly (this may damage the fetuses). Instead, pick her up by placing your hands around her chest, just below her armpits (well, if she were human, you'd call them armpits). This is how I always pick up pregnant queens because they need to be handled more delicately because of being pregnant. Check that her breasts don't have encrustation on them (use vegetable oil to free them). Also, wash her anus with soap and water if it seems sore. During the second half of her pregnancy, she will want to search for a nest to give birth in, and you will want to provide one for her or help her make one. When doing this, remember that she will heed the call of her wild ancestors and behave just as she would in the wild, because the wild blood still runs very much through her veins. In the wild, she will look for an out of the way, deep, dark, private hole that will be safe from attacks by predators. In the house, this will be sought out by the queen in the very same way (even though you are in no way a threat- I hope!) She will be wandering around as if she is looking for something, well, she is, duhh. You might, for example, find her in your open sock drawer or in your closet. She might even be found in a cardboard box sniffing around. This is how you know that it is time to help her prepare her kittening nest. Use this as a guide to finding and building a nest for her. Good examples of great places to build would be: the back or corners of bedroom closets with doors that can be closed and privacy maintained; a drawer inside a bureau, because the drawer will be nice and roomy and it can be closed to make it dark and private. Even a dark kitchen cupboard under the kitchen sink will do. Zoey chose the kitchen cupboard underneath the kitchen sink in my brother's house in which to have her litter. It was warm and dark in there, with a door that could be closed to give her and her kittens some privacy. It was where she could be in this small dark completely enclosed space and feel safe. My brother put a nice soft blue blanket in the cupboard for Zoey to lie on while she gave birth and afterwards, to spend time with her new family. PLEASE don't use things which may have had things like bleach or detergent or any others that may harm a newborn. Take as much thought over the feline babies as you would your own. When she is approaching the end of the second month, you should confine her to the house and don't let her outside, because she might leave to have her kittens in some secluded spot outdoors. Don't allow her to go nuts and dash up and down stairs and jump on and off FURniture (pun intended). You don't want her to injure herself. My brother did all these things at his apartment and when Zoey came to stay with me and my parents up at their house we followed these rules too. The queen will give birth a little after two months. When it happened with Zoey my big brother was gone out somewhere but came home very early in the morning of September 12 (we were a little disappointed that the babies just missed being 9/11 babies by THAT much! That's also an important time to remember for us because one year and one day after the babies were born, on September 13, 2003, we got out collie dog euthanized. She was 14 and a half years old.) My brother, who I'll call Tom, told me that before he left his home on the evening of 9/11, there was nothing out of the ordinary in Zoey's behavior to indicate that she would be going into labor that night. That's the trouble with queens-you may not know for sure exactly when they'll go into labor. My advice for anyone with an expectant queen would be to stay home with her when two months of her gestation has gone by so you can be with her while she gives birth just in case something goes wrong. It just so happened that Tom was not at home when the miracle of birth took place. Here is what to do when you find out that your queen has just given birth. When Tom got home, he saw a few drops of blood on the floor of his home and figured that Zoey must have given birth while he was out. Then he saw Zoey open up the door of the kitchen cupboard, step out, and run across the floor. When Tom looked inside the cupboard, he saw three little kittens with part of their umbilical cords still hanging from their bellies. Three small sacks lay next to the kittens. These were the signs that Zoey had had a normal birth and everything had gone well. See, when a queen gives birth, you don't see two ears poking out, then one paw and then the other comes out...it's not like that. Instead, kittens arrive neatly packed up and packaged in little bags (something like when someone sends you a gift and it comes in the mail all wrapped up in a nice little package!) When the queen has a normal birth, and each kitten comes out, she licks the bag. Her tongue is covered in these little tiny rough bumps (they feel like sandpaper; more on what they are and on their uses later on another page) so that when she does this, the bumps together with the struggling of the kitten, breaks the bag and the kitten crawls out (it's something like a baby bird trying to break out of its eggshell). Then the mother cat nips the umbilical cord (that's the long tube that connects the baby to his/her mother, enabling her body to feed it), cleans up and eats the various bits and pieces and dries off the kitten. When my brother Tom first saw Zoey's three little ones with their bags beside them and part of the umbilical cord still attached, he went and got his gerbertool (that's a contraption that looks like a pocketknife only there's other tools in there besides a knife and when you open them up and spread them out they look like a fan), put it in boiling water to sterilize it, and then used the knife to cut off the rest of the umbilical cords that were still attached to the kittens. There was no bleeding but just in case there is, just press the cut for a few moments. After you cut the umbilical cords and clear away the afterbirths and what have you, you know, tidied the place up, take away the old blanket she gave birth on, because it'll probaby be covered with blood and, well, stuff, and provide her with a fresh new blanket for her and the babies. (If you don't do this she will most likely pick up and move house anyway, not only to stay clean but also because her instincts will tell her to move to avoid predators. Of course this is not necessary if she lives with humans, but even so she still has the instincts of a wild animal, her ancestors, and she still thinks like one, so she will still move her litter anyway.) Sometimes though the little bag that contains the kitten will burst open during labor. In this case the mother cat's human friend needs to help the kitten out. Take hold of the kitten and pull in rhythim with the contractions of the queen, respond to them with a gentle tug on the kitten. Be aware though that a birth like this is not normally what happens, and hence it might not signal the mother cat to clean up afterwards and you might have to do this by yourself.
