Feral who just had babies - How long before she can get pregnant?

Okay as I've said before, I take care of feral cats. Right now I have 3 really friendly ones that love me to death, but the one doesnt' really like other cats and hates my inside cats.

But the other two are twins .. I already got the one fixed but the other one ran when I tried to put her in a cat carrier to get her fixed (no suprise i mean shes never seen a cat carrier before and i tried to shove her in there) and she got pregnant. I didn't know what to do.

Well i think she had her babies about 5 days ago. Thing is... I don't think they made it. It's been very very cold and rainy and she was gone for a few days and I couldn't find her. Well just now she came back, and was not pregnant and has a saggy milk-belly. But she's like .. back. and is hanging out in my backyard and stuff.

So like .. I don't think they made it because why would she be sitting here hanging out with me and goofing around with her sister instead of being with her babies ?


And when should I get her fixed? I don't want to end up taking her in and then it turns out her babies did make it and I took their mom away from them because I would feel SUPER guilty.

I am taking the 2 cats in as long as my cats get along with them.. which they should.

How long before she can get pregnant?!? I don't want to leave her out there TOO long then she gets pregnant again. But I don't want to snatch her up without finding out if her babies are alive or dead because I can't deal with that guilt.

And both are extremely healthy. No issues at all. FIV is not at all a problem around here and other ferals have already been tested and found negative so that would just be a waste of a really expensive test when I already know they don't have it.

She can come into heat again within a few days of giving birth. If she gets pregnant they can still do the spay as long as it is not too far along. There is lots of info about this topic if you do a google search.:)

Can you look around for the kittens? Maybe follow her?

I did, and she basically was just wondering around, which again leads me to believe they passed away. It's been snowing a bit here too and raining and has been dropping down really low at night and so I don't think they made it.


They are both about . a year old maybe? That was her first litter(Diamond) and the other one (Crystal) we got fixed a few months ago so she never got pregnant.

If for some reason my cats don't like them we are putting them back outside and will see if anyone wants them since they are really sweet. I'm mainly worried about Diamond getting pregnant again though.

Hmm I don't know, I'm kind of OCD :p So i'd literally check and keep checking everywhere for at least a week if she sticks around but then again I guess if they died it is possible they aren't even where she left them anymore.:sad: How long do you think she has been away from them? She might just be taking a break.

I find that even friendly cats will go out of their way to hide their young from us. I swear that sometimes they even mislead me so that I think I'm following them to their kittens, but in reality they are taking me further away.

She's a feral, so she's going to be even more wary of people than a domesticated cat would be. There's a good chance that her kittens are still around. I don't find that cats spend a huge amount of time with their kittens. She could very well have them tucked away somewhere and is purposely keeping you from them.

Give it some more time. I've had ferals around here who I KNEW were pregnant. Eventually they show up again without kittens and I figure that they must have lost them. And a few weeks later I finally see tiny little kittens wandering around.

You're going to have to be really sneaky to find them. Also, if you do find them and want to bring them in, keep in mind that because she doesn't trust you it is very likely that she'll reject her kittens. So even if you were able to get both her and the kittens in, she might not nurse them. I would go for leaving her alone, catching her once the kittens are weaned, and doing a pregnant spay if necessary.

I've kind of bonded with the feral cats out back. And alot of them that were shy before come up to my door and want me to cuddle them. Those two (and another one) are super friendly with me.

I'm going to go out tommrow or friday to try and find them. I've had a flu thingy since Saturday so if I feel better I'll go outside and find out whats going on.