My kitty cat is due soon, and she cant find a nest.....

[Pretty Butterfly]

My 1 yr old little black cat is around 6-7 weeks pregnant, so around 1-3 weeks to go..... and she cant find a nest.......

She was going down in to our big shoulder -high feature pot, that has bricks in the bottom to keep it bottom heavy, and was rooting in the newspaper in there, so pulled it all out to stop her. Its a bad place to have her babies!!!
We put the paper into an empty bottom drawer in our walk in robe.... she didn't like it, but liked the area the drawer left in the chest, so put the paper in the cave like area, but she doesn't like that either.

We can see her trying to find somewhere to have them, but dont know how to help her. She'll want them away from the other cat, and the kids. I even emptied a big siutcase, put blankets in it, and put it up safe in the dark... she slept there twice, and hasn't gone back......

How we do help her make her nest???????


ETA... My old cat years ago, climed into my underwear drawer and had her kittens in it... GROSS!!!!! Dont want that to happen again!!!!!

[aussienic]

Oh I had a cat that had her kittens all over my clothes once too.. eeww lol

Our cats we have now.. one had kittens in a box under the house and the other had them behind the pine tree and her second little in our linen cupboard in the bathroom

I suggest closing all spaces you don't want her to go to and keep her a nice quiet dark spot just for her and maybe feed her close to it for a couple days and she might warm up to it

Good luck with your new kitties

[~clover~]

I remember my cat had kittens in my brothers bed while he slept The bottom of a wardrobe.
Our last lot was in DD2's cot, then she moved them under the cot the same day & thats where they stayed til I kicked them outside 6 or so weeks later while we went on our honeymoon.

I have no suggestions, sorry. All I've noticed is that they'll have them in random hidden places, no matter where they sleep.

[Glamourcide]

Our cat couldn't seem to find a nest, either. We knew zero about cat pregnancy (apart from what we Googled when she got really fat and we thought, 'Oh no... kittens!') so we didn't even have an approximate due date for her. It came to panic stations one night when she got really unsettled and started walking around in circles in the lounge room, obviously desperately trying to find a 'safe' spot to birth her kittens (how amazing that they can suppress labour until they feel it's safe to bring their babies into the world?).
DH and I scrambled for sheets and towels, threw all my shoes out of the bottom of our bedroom wardrobe and dumped her in there on some old towels. We'd installed a baby gate at our bedroom door in anticipation of her having kittens, to keep the dog and DD1 out of our room - prior to having kittens she never ventured in there so we didn't know how she'd go when the time came.
Sure enough, once we plonked her in there and she dropped her first kitten, she figured it was as good a place as any and birthed five more (the first and third were DOA, the other four were fine). Oh, I lie. She had five in the wardrobe and DH and I left her to be alone with her new babies, then we heard her yowling in the hallway and when we investigated, found that she'd left her babies in the wardrobe and given birth to another outside the bathroom (it was still in its sac but we rescued it and it survived).
She seemed a bit disinterested to begin with, and we had to keep putting her back in the wardrobe with the kittens, but within 48 hours she was only coming out of the wardrobe to use her litter tray and eat (we'd placed all those bits and bobs at the foot of our bed, about half a metre from the wardrobe). We kept it as dark and quiet as we could in there for her to help her feel comfy, and it all went great from there.
Then when the kittens were walking around and getting bigger, she started dumping them over the baby gate into the hallway - we thought she was trying to feed them to the dog, but turns out she was sending them out into the big wide world to find their feet (real smart when you have a Jack Russell - ratters by nature of their breeding - lying in wait!). We didn't lose any, thankfully, and before we knew it they refused to sleep in the wardrobe anymore - they kept climbing up into our bed and slept with us up there

So try not to worry too much about having a nest prepared in advance... our cat just took the spot we made for her when the time came, as she'd shown no interest in the wardrobe prior to that (I'd already made a nest in there but she wouldn't go near it so I put my shoes back and gave up). HTH

[Tinks]

Our cat had kittens in the wardrobe too! I had made her an area in our ensuite so moved her in there after she'd given birth to 3, she had 2 more in the ensuite.

[Pretty Butterfly]

Then when the kittens were walking around and getting bigger, she started dumping them over the baby gate into the hallway - we thought she was trying to feed them to the dog,

I thought the bottom of the wardrobe was good, so Ill just keep an eye on her I guess...
She is starting to wander aimlessly, and didn't eat breaky today.... maybe she's close!!!!

[Glamourcide]

^ Ooh, it does indeed sound as though kittens are imminent I read that they spend the day or two before birth eating constantly (obviously storing up energy for the big event) and then when they go off their food, you know it's time The aimless wandering is a good sign, too - she'll be starting to think about a good place to go and have her babies. If she starts becoming agitated, get the old towels ready and just pop her wherever you want her to nest, hopefully she'll stick with it if she's close enough to delivering she won't bother leaving the place you provide! Good luck

[briggsy's girl]

we put nesting spots all over the place for our kitty when she was pregnant - boxes where she loved to hang out with blankets and stuff in them. she seemed to just stay pregnant FOREVER - DH was working away and i told him she was waiting for him to come home so she'd feel safe.

anyway, he got home about 4am one morning, gave Dix a pat and came to bed - got out of bed at 6ish to find her with four kittens - on the kitchen table! no nesting stuff - nothing - just a cat and her kittens! thankfully she let us move them into one of the big boxes we'd kept for them and she kept them in there until they started to get mobile. it was good cos we could move them into the lounge with the fan and things where it was cooler.

don't think Dix quite got the notion of nesting - either that, or because she knows our dogs (chihuahua cross) run through the kitcen on their way outside in the mornings, she was making sure they couldn't get near them...