Toasty had a litter of 6 kittens on July 9. They are all doing really well. They are so sweet and adorable!
Toasty's Litter
Toasty’s signs of labor started the evening of July 8th, when I could tell that she was very close to going into labor. Her due date was July 5th, so we were anxiously awaiting the bundles of joy!
Toasty was very anxious, this being her first litter. She stayed attached to me all night (I slept in the nursery). She would pace the room, cry, and look to me as if to ask, “What is going on?” She would snuggle next to me, get up, pace some more, and then walk around the room, inspecting every inch. I could tell she wasn’t interested in using her whelping box, so I just let her be. Yes, some areas of the nursery are carpeted, so I tried to cover the floor with puppy pads. She was just so antsy that I wanted to find some way to comfort her beyond, “It’s okay, Toaster Streudel,” when I decided to grab her two favorite things to lie in. One a round, fluffy tunnel, and the other a felt cat cave. I brought them to the nursery. She immediately went in the furry tunnel. She continued to switch between the two throughout the night, but at least it brought her some comfort. I’ll add photos in case anyone is interested in these items for their cats. They are two of all of our cats’ favorite things.
Toasty and I didn’t sleep much. She used the bathroom about 8 times throughout the night, which happens when a cat is about to give birth. But by 9 am, I could tell the births were imminent. I called my kids to come to the nursery, and we all helped comfort her and encourage her through the process. I was right, she didn’t use the whelping box. She wandered around the room giving birth in multiple locations. She had four in the first hour and a half, so we cleaned them, and kept them warm until she was ready for them. She was still wandering around the room and was unable to take care of them yet. She didn’t have the other two until about noon in a corner of the room, one of the only corners not covered by a puppy pad! We didn’t even realize she had had them because we were so focused on keeping the first four warm and giving Nature Mate (a supplement for kittens) to keep them comfortable until she could care for them.
I went and checked on her in the corner and found the other two kittens already latched to her, still messy with the umbilical cords still attached to their placentas. I cut their umbilical cords and cleaned the new kittens up as gently as I could as they nursed. (It’s important to get them dry as quickly as possible, or their body temperature can drop significantly, and I wasn’t sure if they had just been born two minutes ago or twenty minutes ago.
Once everyone was clean and warm, I remembered I had a kitten tent/playpen that I bought for a cat show a few months back. I dragged that out, cleaned it, and set it up with a blanket on top of it to give her a safe place to go, and she went right in with one of the kittens. We brought the rest of the kittens in with her, and she started nursing them right away – a big task for a new mother of 6! She is wonderful with them. She is so caring and concerned for them. She is a wonderful mother!
Here are the kittens! Right now, we refer to them by their collar color . We haven’t named them yet because we aren’t 100% sure of their genders quite yet.
