The birthing box

When cats give birth naturally they chose their own little areas to nest. They make their perfect little den often in a closed or confined smaller space- though some do also love humans beds- especially our pet cats who see humans as part of their safe zones.

In the past I have let my girls do this but unfortunately I discovered that there are some catches to doing this with a tightly bonded pair like my Circe and Sansa.

These girls like to have kittens in very close timeframes to each other. They also like to help each other but sometimes that help….can involved kidnapping and sometimes one mumma cat having all of the kittens and the other mother becoming distressed. Plus baby kittens being moved a lot between their Mom’s can also lead to them not quite being as well cared for and safe as I would like. So while the kittens are newborns we try and keep them with their actually mother for those first few days to bond and when each mother is settled I reintroduce them to raise their babies communally.

Initially we set up a special den for each of our Mothers to be. In my case its a giant dog crate with a cover over it for extra privacy, and a few specific cat friendly internal features. As well as the obvious -food litter tray and comfortable bedding, another internal features is a large kmart blanket box to allow the mamma cat to lounge and hang out on the roof of the box as well as having a covered den like area to actuallly keep her kittens in and retreat into when she feels her time approaching.

I still keep my Birthing pen in the kitten room so Sansa will have her sister nearby for company but the walls keep her privacy and ker kittens safe from being moved and stolen regularly by Auntie. The pen is also placed on a height so I can keep an eye on things using our Eufy camera and check on the Mumma to be and later babies as needed from my phone.