is it normal for a mother cat to basically abandon her babies without even nursing them at all?

Answer 1

Certain Cats like Humans lack parenting skills though rare it is not unknown for a Mama Cat to say Nyet to Parenting. Sometimes it is sign of illness, or it may be that she doesn't feel good raising a litter in her curent enviroment. Abandoning one's litter is a way to say there will only be one cat in this place....

Peace...............

Answer 2

It is a rare thing but it does happen. I've never heard it happening to a whole litter though. The times I have heard of the mother cat refusing a kitten is because there was always something WRONG with the kitten. The one time I had heard of it nothing SEEMED to be wrong with the kitten so my step mother took him in. He lived a great life. Until he got cancer. Sadly he had to be put down. So typically of corse a cat won't abandon her young but take a close look at the litter to see if they are healthy or not. The mother cat could also be having a problem with stress but I'm not positive on that.

Answer 3

No not normal, but the age of the mother cat and her nutrition level can make the do this. If this was her first set of kittens and she was less than a year old she just didn't know what to do. Best to get her spayed before she has another litter.

Answer 4

Is she a young cat? (Or maybe still a kitten herself?) Is this her first litter? Sometimes new mothers just won't know what to do with the kittens. They don't really know what's going on, and they've never seen another mom cat take care of kittens so they don't know what they're supposed to do with them. I've heard of other young mothers in zoos, not just cats, who just won't bond with their young or take care of them.

If there's another mom animal around (and not necessarily another cat), sometimes the kittens can be introduced to her, and she'll allow them to nurse. Very often, though, the only way to save the kittens is to bottle feed them until they're old enough to eat solid food.

Answer 5

If this is the case, you need to take action now. Those kittens need to be fed every 2 hours and need to be stimulated to eliminate by getting a warm towel and gently rubbing the butt of the cat in a back and forth firm yet swift and gentle motion. If you are completely confused then call your local PetSmart and get the numbers of a no-kill shelter that can come get them, raise them, spay and neuter them and give them all their shots and then they will place them up for adoption.

Answer 6

I rescued a litter of kittens where the mama was dead and raised them on a bottle. Imagine my surprise when I found my old neutered male allowing them to nurse and cleaning them! They all grew up just fine, although it was about a year before they stopped nursing!

Answer 7

definately not.. but i dod have a cat that was sort of like that... it was her first litter.. im not sure if that should be taken into account or not but... we had her in a cage with the kittens.. she had a total of 7 or 9 [cant fully remember] and she laid on some and wouldn't nurse others. she even used the bathroom in the cage while they were in there and wouldnt clean them after they were in her business.
she worried about cleaning herself before she worried about her kittens...
she recently had her second litter and shes a better mom, but im not sure about your cat.

Answer 8

No, there's something wrong. Make sure the kittens are warm (eg warm, not hot, water bottle wrapped in a towel) and get all of them, mother and kittens to the vet asap.

Answer 9

They might be sick. The mother cat senses when her newborns are ill and can abandon them. Or she could be sick herself and therefore acting strange.

Answer 10

No, This is not at all normal. Felines are a strange breed indeed.