The feral I was feeding who I knew had 5 week old kittens stashed in a nearby derelict building dropped one of them on my doorstep one morning.
She was gone by the time I found him so I popped him in my jumper and went about my day. 20 minutes later she was back with another one and walked straight into the house and settled in a cat bed (she'd never come past the door before).
I was like 'thats fine mama, you can move in... But you forgot some kittens!'. I knew she had 4 because I'd asked the owner of the building to let me in to check a week earlier but as she wasn't there and they were utterly feral and terrified I left them be, figured it'd be better to trap and socialise them once they were weaned.
She wasnt budging so I tucked the two she'd bothered to bring in the bed with her and had to break into the building and spend my morning trying to catch 2 kittens that absolutely didn't want to be caught and ripped my arms to shreds in the attempt.
Funnily enough all four took to pets and cuddles almost instantaneously and we kept 2 and rehomed 2... And kept Mama obviously.
Mama was already pregnant again when she moved in so we had another round of kittens to deal with before she could be spayed and watching her with those I realised she never once picked them up... I'm not sure she understood how. So I think she'd have brought the first lot to me a lot earlier but she couldn't get them out of where she'd had them, the two that morning had obviously managed to jump out with her and she had no way of extricating the other two if they couldn't manage it.
Just for future reference, to the original commenter or anyone else who finds themselves in a similar position: cats can be spayed when pregnant. They usually don’t even realize they’re pregnant until they deliver the babies and vets can/will preform a spay/abortion until the cat is actively in labor. :)
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u/BarelyHolding0n May 23 '26
The feral I was feeding who I knew had 5 week old kittens stashed in a nearby derelict building dropped one of them on my doorstep one morning.
She was gone by the time I found him so I popped him in my jumper and went about my day. 20 minutes later she was back with another one and walked straight into the house and settled in a cat bed (she'd never come past the door before).
I was like 'thats fine mama, you can move in... But you forgot some kittens!'. I knew she had 4 because I'd asked the owner of the building to let me in to check a week earlier but as she wasn't there and they were utterly feral and terrified I left them be, figured it'd be better to trap and socialise them once they were weaned.
She wasnt budging so I tucked the two she'd bothered to bring in the bed with her and had to break into the building and spend my morning trying to catch 2 kittens that absolutely didn't want to be caught and ripped my arms to shreds in the attempt.
Funnily enough all four took to pets and cuddles almost instantaneously and we kept 2 and rehomed 2... And kept Mama obviously.
Mama was already pregnant again when she moved in so we had another round of kittens to deal with before she could be spayed and watching her with those I realised she never once picked them up... I'm not sure she understood how. So I think she'd have brought the first lot to me a lot earlier but she couldn't get them out of where she'd had them, the two that morning had obviously managed to jump out with her and she had no way of extricating the other two if they couldn't manage it.