Jobs & Education0 min ago
What went wrong?
Unfortunately, i hadn't realised that she was giving birth until it was too late. (There is no nice way of putting this.)
When i found her, she had delivered one.....but on moving her paw I was horrified to see that she had begun to eat it.
She was alone, in a place that i'm sure she felt safe in.
I called the vets and they told me to bring her down to the surgery immediately. Once there she was induced as she had stopped contracting. She delivered one stillborn, and then 2 healthy looking gingers.
I don't understand what happened.
She is at home now, with her 2 healthy babies, but is continuously scowering the room, miaowing and calling loudly, which is very out of character. Its like she's missing the ones she lost.
Is anyone familiar with this odd behaviour....or can anyone tell me what went wrong.....or why she felt the need to eat the first kitten?
Answers
No best answer has yet been selected by WiccanKitten. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.
For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.It was probably already dead, or very weak, and I know bitches will often eat a puppy in these circumstances, it is just natures way and we will always find it hard to understand. Sometimes they will push a weak baby out of the nest and so let it die. You are lucky to have the two healthy kits, enjoy them and look after her, and don't dwell on 'what might have been'.
I am sure she will soon stop calling and settle to feed and clean her new family.
She won't go into the living room at all, even though I thoroughly cleaned the area where her water broke and she gave birth to the first kitten..... do you think perhaps she can smell it, or maybe that she just knows?
I'm giving her plenty of tlc. She looks so peaceful when she's with the little lads, but when she paces the room she just looks distraught.
Animals behave in ways that we don't understand, but we try to advance 'human' behaviour onto them to help us get to grips with the things they do. A mother in the wild will devour a dead delivery to prevent the smell reaching predators and leading them to her live offspring, plus there is the added advantage of nutrition - gruesome I know, but nature is practical rather than sentimental.
It is unlikely that Sugar is actually pining for her dead kitten, although it must appear that way, or that she associates one room with the difficulty of her first delivery.
Give her time, and she will settle, she has obviously bonded with her two live kittens, so all would seem to be well. Don't worry to much about her odd behaviour, she is new to this as well!
I have kept my distance up until today, when Sugar bought the two babies one by one, over to my lap - Guess what - its not Dante and Diego...............Its Dante....and Dante's SISTER!!!
They're both doing really well, and she is fantastic with them.
I was really honoured that she carried them over to me, i'm like the proud grandmother!
Saintjohnny - tell me about it! Sugar's "other half" (not the father of the kits, i hasten to add!!) is a ginger male called Dragon - He's FANTASTIC, so much character. xx