Breeding

Far too many unplanned and unwanted kittens are produced each year and are then abandoned or destroyed. Avoid adding to their numbers by only mating your cat if you can be quite certain beforehand of finding good homes for all the kittens, or if you are prepared to keep them yourself.
 

If you do not intend to breed from your cat – whether male or female – you should have it neutered by your vet at about five months of age to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

MATING

If you wish to mate a pedigree female cat, you will need to take herby prior arrangement to a suitable tom (stud) cat when she is in season, or ‘calling’ (see below). Matings are carefully supervised, and the female (queen) will usually stay for about three days. She will need to be fully vaccinated, and you will be asked to show the certificates to the stud cat’s owner. You may also need to arrange for certain blood tests to be carried out in advance to ensure that your cat is free from infections such as feline AIDS.

A queen does not undergo spontaneous ovulation – the act of mating itself triggers the release of eggs from her ovary. However, a number of signs will indicate when the queen is ready to mate, starting with the ‘pro-oestrus’ phase of the cycle when she will become overtly friendly, rolling on the floor. She will also howl, or ‘call’, frequently to attract tom cats in the area. Soiling around the home is common, as unneutered queen’s urine contains chemicals called pheromones; these will be wafted on the wind and detected by other cats, again indicating her readiness to mate.

Repeated matings with the stud cat will give the greatest chances of pregnancy. Once the queen returns home to you, keep her inside for about 10 days or she could slip out and mate with another tom cat; this would result in the litter having two sires.

PREGNANCY

Pregnancy lasts for approximately nine weeks, although it will only be in the later stages that the cat will show a noticeable increase in weight. While your queen is pregnant you must handle her with great care and provide an increasing amount of food, together with any supplements prescribed by your vet. A queen is generally checked by a vet about four weeks after mating and one week before kittening.

BIRTH

Your cat will seek a quiet place to give birth. Provide a bed in a secluded spot and encourage her to use it beforehand, or she may disappear out of the door and give birth away from your home, where it will be much harder for you to keep an eye on her and the kittens.

Cats normally give birth without assistance, but you should inspect the nesting place occasionally in case your queen seems to be having problems and you need to seek veterinary help. Once she has produced the kittens, avoid disturbing her in any way or she may move them – carrying each one in turn by the scruff of its neck – to a quieter spot. Kittens are born with their eyes sealed; these will open when they are a few days old.

EARLY LIFE

From the start, you should handle all the kittens gently every day to accustom them to human contact. Kittens are taught by their mothers to lap at four to five weeks, and will start eating solid food (known as weaning) soon afterwards.

Kittens become sexually mature when they are about five or six months old, but it is unwise to breed them until they are 12 months old. If you are particularly keen to breed from your female kittens and do not wish to have them neutered, your vet will be able to give them tablets or an injection to stop them coming into season, which can occur every three to four weeks.

Sexing kittens: in the male, the distance between the ano-genital opening is greater than in the female.

HAND-REARING KITTENS
If one or more kittens is abandoned or orphaned, you may need to take over its care. Hand-rearing is a difficult task, not only because of the time involved and the need to give frequent feeds, but also because such kittens are often more susceptible to illness. If possible, try to foster the kittens to a queen who is producing milk but has only a few kittens of her own: your vet may be able to put you in touch with a fellow breeder who can help. The following are guidelines of what to do if you have to rear kittens yourself.

Hygiene

When hand-rearing a kitten, it is crucial to observe strict rules of hygiene and to sterilize all your equipment very carefully. The mother’s milk gives a kitten valuable antibodies which will protect it in the first weeks; without these a kitten may easily die if it catches an infection.

Equipment

The equipment needed for hand-rearing is simple. To place drops of milk formula in the kitten’s mouth you can use an eye dropper (available from pharmacists), a medical syringe with the needle replaced by a length of fine tubing, or a special kitten-feeding bottle from a pet store.

How much to feed

Feed every two hours for the first week, giving 5 ml (1 tsp) per feed. Gradually increase the quantity of each feed and work down to four feeds per day.

Milk formula for hand-rearing
In an emergency situation, you can use either human baby milk food at double the normal strength, or a mixture of the following:

·         200 ml (1 cup) fresh milk (ideally this should be the milk produced specifically for cats).

·         50 ml (1/4 teacup) single cream.

·         ¼ egg yolk.

·         1 drop cod-liver oil.

·         1.25 ml (1/4 tsp) sterilized bonemeal (sold in pet stores).

Stir the mixture until it has a uniform consistency, and serve it at body temperature. Ideally you should make up a fresh mixture for each feed, but you can store any unused mixture in the refrigerator for a few hours as long as you allow it to warm up again to body temperature before giving it to the kitten.

 

HAND-WEANING

Once the hand-reared kitten has survived its first four or five weeks and is doing well, you will need to wean it off the milk formula and gradually introduce kitten food (this is the stage at which a queen would naturally be weaning her kittens on to solid foods).

Milk formula for weaning

Any of the following will be suitable for feeding a kitten of this age:

·         Either of the preparations described above for hand-weaning.

·         Proprietary powdered formula (available from pet stores).

·         Milk mixed with raw egg yolk.

·         Puppy biscuit simmered in milk.

A queen will take charge of every aspect of her kittens’ care and hygiene in the early weeks, including washing them and even cleaning under their tails.

MASTITIS

A queen will usually take full care of her litter, and will show a natural and well-developed maternal instinct.

The problem that you are most likely to encounter with your queen is mastitis, when one or more of the mammary glands becomes reddened and swollen due to infection. As a result the kittens will be unable to feed here and will appear restless, crying out repeatedly (healthy, well-fed kittens are normally quiet). If you suspect mastitis, seek veterinary help for your cat without delay.