Feline Pregnancy

The pregnancy of a domestic cat lasts just 9 weeks - around 63-65 days. Compared to the 40 weeks of human gestation, this 9 weeks mean that the kittens need to develop very fast. Some cats have even given birth successfully at just 55 days but this is rare & unusual.

A Healthy Queen

The female cat who is of age & mated is called a Queen. It’s vital before being mated, throughout her pregnancy & subsequent lactation that she is fit & healthy with high quality very nutrient dense food fed to her throughout.  Before being considered for breeding from she must be vet checked, FIV/FELV tested & her heart scanned & diagnosed as being free of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM) each year.

A Healthy Mate (Tom)

The male who is to sire her kittens must be chosen with great care. He should not be related to the queen & he must also have undergone all the same rigorous health screening as the queen whether or not he is to be a resident in-house only or an open stud.

The breeder should always be breeding for the betterment of the breed & as such will consider many aspect in selection of mates to ensure the future generations are the strongest they can be. They will consider the size of the male & female for compatibility to prevent complications of labour/birth. 
If the male is a well-built particularly large specimen for the breed & the dam small & slight, the kittens of such a coupling are equally likely to carry his genetic just as much as her own. As large kittens may be a struggle for her to birth, this would be highly likely to lead to the need for urgent emergency veterinary intervention. If the Tom/stud is an already proven male the size of kittens he has fathered with other females will need to be taken into consideration.

Other factors such as the coat & eye colour & character traits present in both parents & in the previous generations are important. 

Breeders will consider characteristics the breeding pair possess as well as those of previous generations particularly with regard to such things as eye & coat colour present in their genetic codes. The traits of the parents in terms of their affectionate nature, playfulness, calmness & if they enjoy being around people & children etc will also likely be seen in offspring. 

Feeding for the healthy pregnancy & beyond.

A queen should have high quality food available to her at all times so that her fertility is at its peak & her eggs of superior quality. It will also support her so that her body will cope with the additional stress placed upon her during pregnancy so that her embryos/kittens develop fully & correctly as well as during kitten rearing to ensure that her milk is plentiful & supports her kittens. 

If the cat is fed with commercially produced food, transitioning her from her normal adult complete food to either a kitten or mother & baby complete food is the best carried out prior to her matings. These foods are formulated to provide the ideal nutritional support with the queen remaining on this food for an extended period after successful weaned of her kittens to allow for her body to recover lost condition.

Born blind with sealed eyes & ears, kittens continue to develop rapidly after they are born. Once their eyes are opened & they have begun to explore outside of there ‘den’, rest assured they will have noted what their mother is eating. Additionally, as this is also the time when milk is no longer sustaining them & their teeth are present, the mother will want them to stop assaulting her teats & will be encouraging them to take an interest in the her food too. Having their mother eating a kitten or mother & baby food allows her to lead them to it to share aiding a natural transition to solid food.

If your cat is fed raw, make sure that you have a suitable raw weaning paste/pâté ready for them.

In regard to your Queen or stud cat you must take care to manage their food transitions as appropriate to life-stage carefully & gradually over several days. This also applies to moving your kitten/cat to a different brand, type or life stage of food after taking it home. As well as the information below, you may wish to visit our page dedicated to Food & Transitioning where you will find tables & suggested food ratios for further help with this. 

Food Transitions in Pregnancy

Watch your cat closely when making any dietary change. Make sure that she is eating and drinking well & that her stools are normal. If she seems unwell, develops diarrhoea or sickness or there is blood in the stool you can backtrack a few days allowing her digestive system to settle back down & then continue with the change but more slowly in smaller ratios and over a longer period. See the suggestions below:

WARNING

An abrupt change in food/diet can cause a kitten/cat to become very ill very quickly.
  • Severe diarrhoea can lead to dehydration and onward quickly to very serious complications. 
  • A blockage causing constipation or incorrectly digested food can be fatal
A speedy change over taking 9 days:

Day 1 & 2:   80% usual adult cat food //mixed with\\ 20% of the new food

Day 3 & 4:   60% //\\40% 
Day 5 & 6:   40% //\\60% 
Day 7 & 8:   20% //\\80% 
Day 9:          100% new food

If this change is too fast & proving too harsh for your cat try a slower, more gentle change as follows:  



Day 1:   95//\\5%             Day 11: 45//\\55%
Day 2:   90//\\10%           Day 12: 40//\\60%
Day 3:   85//\\15%           Day 13: 35//\\65%
Day 4:   80//\\20%           Day 14: 30//\\70%
Day 5:   75//\\25%           Day 15: 25//\\75%
Day 6:   70//\\30%           Day 16: 20//\\80%
Day 7:   65//\\35%           Day 17: 15//\\85%
Day 8:   60//\\40%           Day 18: 10//\\90%
Day 9:   55//\\45%           Day 19: 5//\\95%
Day 10: 50//\\50%           Day 20: 100% new food

Water:

Clean and fresh water should always be available to your cat.

Pregnancy Health Care:

During pregnancy, your cat should continue to be wormed at the appropriate times. Check the dosage & instructions even if this is a product you have been using for some time. 

A safe & gentle wormer such as Panacur is ideal for both mother & her kittens who will be wormed, along with mum, when they are 2 weeks old.

Pregnancy Diagnosis - Is she or isn't she? 

Once mating has occurred you'll be watching for the first signs that the pregnancy has been successful. You might choose to go to the vet who may be able to feel the pregnancy at around 15 days, or you may decide to have her ultrasound scanned which is best from day 18 - 30 or, well,  you might just sit back & wait 2 - 3 weeks to see the early physical signs.

Pregnancy Scanning

For pregnancy diagnosis scanning your vet may offer this service, or you may choose to have the scan performed at home using the services of a mobile practitioner. There are several such scanners in the UK who offer the same service as the vet but at home & at sensible prices.

The best time for ultrasound scanning for diagnosis & even a possible kitten count is at around 18-30 days. You must, however, keep in mind that the kitten count is not always accurate & this might be for one (or both) of two reasons......

  1. despite being small at this stage, one foetus can hide behind another during scanning & since it is not seen is not counted. 
  2. should a foetus not survive early on in development in the womb it can be reabsorbed into the body therefore once counted, it is gone by the time of the birth.
Find your nearest practitioner suitable for pregnancy diagnosis (cats and dogs) here: Find a Scanner

Pinking

If you can wait it out then you will need to look out for the physical signs at around 15-21 days. At this stage, the cats' nipples will turn pink in colour. This is known as Pinking or Pinking up.

During the pregnancy the nipples will become elongated in preparation making them the right size for the kittens to be able to latch on and feed. In a furred cat after pinking & over the coming weeks the mother-to-be will groom away the hairs around each nipple to make it easier for the kittens to find them.
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A diary of the experience of Noodle's First Pregnancy

Noodle came into heat for the first time on 9th December 2016 just as I was taking her with me to visit my mum. She called again just a fortnight later on the 24th of December - just in time to keep me awake over Christmas & New Year! I noted during both times when there were men around she favoured them greatly & was it seems attempting to seduce them!

Her third calling began on 4th February, then for some reason she left March out altogether. Her fourth heat cycle kicked off on the 17th April, May was quiet & her fifth on 6th June was quickly followed on June 27th with her seventh.  I thought that perhaps the longer days & warmer weather was now triggering a faster estrus cycle but then July went by quietly.

On the 12th August, she flared into heat 
for the eighth time, my cue to take her to visit the stud I'd chosen for her mating.

Human Men

I had noted very early on that when my sons visited or if a man was in the house, that Noodle would show them a great deal of interest, definitely more so that she did to women. Council workers neighbours & estate agents became the prime targets for her affections. She would spend time checking them out sniffing them thoroughly.  Luckily, most of these men have been enamoured with Noodle & didn't mind terribly, but this surely suggests that there is a scent or pheromone given off by a human male that is similar (or the same) as that given off by a male cat?

Underlining this commonality when each time she went into heat that her interest in men became extremely heightened. Rather than the thorough sniffing of them & their faces, now she would exhibit very flirtatious, downright wanton behaviour trilling and cooing, lying down and showing her tummy. trying in her cat ways to look appealing & 'sexy' to them!


During the summer of 2017, I'd watched her closely as I was waiting to take her to stud.  I wanted her to come into heat in July, & as she did twice she did in June I thought it would follow quickly in July but strangely she failed to call for several weeks...... Proving beyond all doubt that there is a commonly shared scent-marker between the species which I believe my son must have in abundance, with no sign that a calling was even on its way, after a visit from said son one Saturday afternoon Noodle was catapulted into heat calling at full pelt.

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Deciding to Breed

Before owning a Sphynx cat I had done plenty of research into the breed & talked endlessly with my close friends about the suitability of this breed for my lifestyle. Then, during my search for a cat to have as a pet came the possibility of one that was active registered starting me to think about beginning my own cattery. 

I knew from the out that I had wanted a female Sphynx cat since they are smaller & lighter than a male & due to a spinal condition lifting & carrying their greater weight would be difficult for me. I came across Noodle at just 15 weeks of age with a male of about the same age who were being re-sold! The original purchaser had bought them both on the active register with the intention to start her own cattery. Unfortunately her circumstances unexpectedly changed forcing her to change her plans. I contacted her asking if I might buy just the female which she confirmed was fine.

But in the interim days before collating her, my mind inevitably turned to ‘what if’. This kitten had been intended to become a breeding queen in a newly established cattery. What if she still could be? Was this something I could explore & do?

I spent time looking into the policies, rules & regulations set out for breeders learning about breeding practices (& malpractices). And then forged ahead developing a cattery policy that reflects my own values, that plays by my rules & which puts the cats' interests firmly first.

Doing it right means my cat comes first; her health & wellness my #1 priority.  She is, after all, my beloved pet-child & breeding her or not, it is essential that her nutritional & welfare needs are fully met.


Doing it right would also mean finding & selecting a suitable mate - making sure he has all the right credentials possessing a calm, affectionate temperament & be proven so that I could ask about previous litters he has sired. I wanted to know had his queens had straightforward & trouble-free births of healthy, robust kittens. He would need to be of a size that Noodle could manage - since I did not want her to face any difficulties giving birth (which as it turned out did not go to plan at all).


It was very, very important to me that this male too would be a much loved & cherished family pet with his duties as a stud being secondary. This meant that he needed to be a house cat, not one living caged up, or in a chalet & unsocialised for much of his time. Sadly some stud cats are subjected to this as it is difficult to keep a male in he home due in large part to their drive to scent mark but also to prevent them impregnating other resident females. 

I am so grateful that I found a cattery who own a beautiful male who is made available to stud and both cattery & cat ticked all the boxes. In fact the sire’s owner & I have become close friends. See Sire(s) & Mating page.

Ready for Mating

When Noodle sprung into heat on August 12th, 2017, as had been arranged, I made immediate contact to check that he was available (not engaged with another female). Finding that he was, we immediately made arrangements for me to travel there with Noodle as soon as possible.
* It is always the female who travels to the male because the female is much more concerned (at that time) about her hormonal onslaught & her drive to mate. This need over-rides any stress that she might normally have about going to, or being in, a strange place. 
Noodle & I had frequently travelled together staying over with my mum so I wasn't at all worried about her reaction to the adventure as far as getting there. On Monday morning August 15th 2017, we drove for an hour & forty minutes to drop her off. She stayed with her mate until Friday 19th August when I drove back to collect her again. See information about her mate on our Sire(s) page.

Being Pregnant

Since choosing the best quality life-stage appropriate food was the #1 thing I could do for Noodle, she had transitioned to a kitten formula food to ensure she, her eggs, then growing embryos/kittens would be well-nourished for optimum health & development as well as set her up for having an adequate & enduring milk supply for them.

Noodle does not seem to feel at all happy about this first pregnancy. She could certainly tell that she felt different from the outset. Her hormones seemed confused making her unsettled & needy.

Week 1 & 2 were spent settling her back in at home after she returned from her short stay with her beau (see Sire(s) page). 

In week 3 the first physical signs started to show. Her nipples changed colour from the pale flesh colour matching he belly as was normal to become a vivid blushing pink.

First signs - pinking up!

In week 4 her nipples became darker seeming to glow a deeper pink.

In week 5 I noted a definite change in her shape particularly at her flank which has filled out with the kittens being by now over half way through their gestation. There has definitely been an awful lot of complaining. Noodle is frequently meowing in the same way that she does before she makes a visit to her litter tray. It's like she is telling me "I have tummy ache - please do something".  Like us, cats do have a morning sickness equivalent & although she is not sick, I wonder if she might feel nauseous or there is bodily discomfort?

At this stage a furry cat will begin to repeatedly lick their nipples to remove a lot of the hairs surrounding them readying them for the kittens to find & latch on. While this stripping is not necessary for Noodle, there does seem to be more attention & time being paid to grooming there showing that the same physical urges are present even when there is no fur.

I've also noticed Noodle is also suffering more from blackheads & that there is more sebum being produced around her chin area. She is a little prone to having studs in her tail but it's new to have them at the chin so I am guessing this too, like in us humans is a hormonal issue. At one point this week there was a painful, raised bump at the base of the tail indicating a blockage or boil but this went away after a day or two without the need for treatment.

In week 6 Her tummy is really beginning to grow now which is most visible when she lays down. I've noted a red mark on her belly situated around the site of her own belly button where her placenta would originally have been. Her nipples are now elongated as they prepare to fit nicely into the mouths of hungry kittens. Her breast tissue is swollen & enlarged with a definite breast shape where once she was pancake flat. She does seem not quite so 'confused' in her behaviours this week. I wonder if new hormones are coming & if any of this will change her permanently?


My beautiful girl.
Nipples are elongated & pronounced.
Breasts have enlarged and tummy is rounded.

Week 7 - Noodle is affectionate & seeking lots of attention, much more demanding of love & cuddles during the daytime hours than is normal for her. I'm guessing that this might be the beginnings of an influx of new hormones in preparation for the kittens, Perhaps these are designed to give her the necessary attachment to her babies that hey will need in order to survive?

I have read previously of a cat who had happily raised several ducklings when they were given to her at the time of her own litter arriving. She accepted these ducklings as her own because just after birth there is a small window of opportunity when the cat's hormones set her into a "nurture-mode". Had she been near to those ducklings at any other time they would very likely have become a welcome snack rather than gathered up to drink milk from her teats alongside her kittens!


Noodles stools are odd, starting off normal but become soft at the end. This is apparently a common symptom in pregnancy & is caused by a harmless protozoan organism called Guardia that normally lives in small numbers the gut causing no problem at all, but that become 'activated' during pregnancy. 

A few days passed & her poop returned to normal -  thank goodness as she is now really ramping up on the amount of food she is eating.

There are now less than 2 weeks to go! I am watching her tummy hoping to see/feel her kittens move inside of her but so far I haven't seen a thing.

Pregnant 7 weeks.

6th October - Noodle has a skin rash all over.  It is not bothering her & she seems fine with no itching etc. In fact, had she been a furred cat I would never even have known there is a problem. I have called the vet anyway to take her for a check over................

What a big fuss was made of Noodle at the vet. As always she behaved impeccably as Phil, our vet, looked her over & weighed her. She has put on over a kilo from her normal approx. 2.79-3kg.

He thinks that the ongoing rash has been caused by overactivity of normal flora and fauna on the skin due to the fact that pregnancy has weakened her immune system.  In a non-pregnant cat he may have given steroids but with kittens in her belly, it is best not to give Noodle any kind of drug treatment now. Instead, Noodle is to have baths every 3 days washing her with Hibiscrub. He added that if it doesn't clear up come weaning time we can give her some steroids then.........

I then queued to pay for the consult. Phil suddently tapped me on the shoulder & asked could I spare another 5 minutes as he would like to scan her, just for a look. YIPPEE! Yes, please!!!

A junior nurse came in since  this was educational. Phil pointed out a heartbeat, placenta and a kitten shape. At this stage of the game he said that the kittens are too big to count how many are in there. To an untrained eye, the screen really isn't clear so it was hard for me to see much, but it was good to see nonetheless, and I came away very glad I'd taken her & feeling reassured that I could call if I needed help over the coming days.

The baths are definitely not something Noodle is happy with having. When she hears me filling up her bath she runs into hiding. I really don't want to stress her or make her mistrust me but we are 2 baths into treatment I think there is a positive difference so it appears to be helping. 

Meanwhile, there are now only about 8-10 days to go and I am feeling more anxious by the day. I'm watching to witness the movement of kittens inside as well her behaviour to see if she is looking for a nest site.

Week 8 - The final week is upon us. Noodle is ultra-purry and affectionate several times a day and during the night - with the occasional harsh bite thrown in at times which comes so suddenly and is so unexpected. I have puncture wounds! This must be hormonal or kittens are hurting her inside?. She knows that this is not a behaviour I like & looks so very shocked at having done it!

I've wondered throughout this whole pregnancy at what she must be experiencing and how she must feel? She has nothing to compare all this to... no previous experience & no matriarch to have learned from. Maybe once the kittens are born it will all make sense to her so that the next time she is pregnant she will remember & ease into it all? 

She is so intelligent;often ‘calculating’ in situations, or will watch then try things out for herself. She has for certain been very aware throughout that her body inside feels very different to usual & as she has changed physically, especially during these last weeks. Like a heavily pregnant woman, she too can't get comfortable with her growing tummy & breasts. I’m particularly sad that Noodle has been unable to get into her "happy position" which is to suckle herself for comfort as she usually does. I wonder if she will ever do that again (it turned out that no she didn’t). I've noted that she doesn't leap so far or so high to get to places she would normally have taken in her stride. Trial and error or ultra awareness of her delicate condition? 

I wonder too if the experience of motherhood will mature her in subtle ways & bring about a personality adjustment which will be noticeable after kittens have grown & gone & we are back to normal here? Will we even have be back to normal here? Time will tell.

She is more active than usual at night, or maybe I'm more aware of it because she is making so much noise! I've seen no nesting behaviours so am wondering where she will choose to give birth.  I have a shallow plastic storage box ready in which I would like her to give birth, lined in the bottom & sides with vetbed it will provide warmth & comfort.  I have more vetbed too  so I can easily change it if it gets messy during the birth.  I have a cardboard box blanketed out & placed in another spot. I just hope she chooses one of them & doesn't decide to go behind the TV! 

I now also have a large dog travel crate lined with vet bed in the back half which I would like her to move into later on.  Instinct tells a cat to  move her kittens from the original birthing nest. It's been set up now for a few weeks so that she is not suspicious of it. It is easily large enough with plenty of space for mum & babies plus, when kittens are mobile & I want to shut the door overnight for their safety when I am sleeping, to place inside a litter tray with food & water bowls too.

Week 9 - Well... the last days are upon us - tomorrow will be the 63rd day following her first mating  (15th August to 17th Oct = 63 days).  I should get another rash-bath in for Noodle before the big day... her skin has improved a lot rash-wise but it's not yet gone. I hope the vet was right in diagnosing a fungal infection due to her lowered immune system. She has a terrible tummy output again though she is eating & drinking well & doesn't appear under the weather in any way. Hopefully, once her kittens are born we can medicate her with something that doesn't cross the milk barrier.

Oh boy - labour started on day 65. - but it didn't progress. No panting or contractions just a slow blood tainted discharge. 

Off to vet where she had a cesarean on 20th October (day 66).

The  pregnancy ended badly. Just one live kitten. The rash cleared up almost immediately & I now believe the rash was caused by something that killed her kittens or more likely caused by the kittens being in trouble. Her labour just did not progress at all on her own. I was asked if she was to be neutered at the same time. I said no to this option. I hope that was the right decision. 

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