OK, there’s been a female cat living under my house. Today I waited 'til she was out and blocked off her entry hole. I also was under the house for a general checking out (pics of the hole and the underside of the house here) and looked for kittens but didn’t see any. But beause of limited crawlspace, I couldn’t really get all the way to the side where the hole was. I shone my flashlight around pretty good and didn’t see any movement so I concluded it was kitten free.
But the female cat was just outside crying. I know she’s female because she has a couple of “gentleman callers” although I’ve never seen them actually mate. Two questions for the cat experts:
How likely is it that a cat would’ve had kittens in December. Extremely rare or happens sometimes?
If a cat had kittens, would she be hanging around away from the nest, flirting with a male?
Argh, I’m just want to make sure I haven’t doomed some kittens of dying of dehydration and starvation. Plus, I heard the female cat but I can’t be 100% certain she didn’t sneak back in when I was blocking up the entry points. What if the crying wasn’t coming from beneath the bathroom window but from under the bathroom? Argh. I wish I’d seen her after I’d blocked everything up…
I wouldn’t call myself a cat expert, but we recently took in a pregnant stray so I’ve been through it a bit.
How likely is it that a cat would’ve had kittens in December. Extremely rare or happens sometimes?
It does sometimes happen, especially in places where it doesn’t get really cold (like, say, Texas).
If a cat had kittens, would she be hanging around away from the nest, flirting with a male?
Cats go back into heat about 4-6 weeks after having kittens, and if she didn’t have a food source under the house she would also need to leave them to go eat.
On the one hand, kitten squeek a lot. I would think you would be able to hear them through your floor if they were under there. On the other, female cats that aren’t spayed are pretty much always pregnant or nursing kittens. They’re very, very prolific breeders. If she seems really set on getting back under the house, I would be concerned. How does she look? Can you see teats? Does she look pregnant? How bad would it be to just let her live under there?
I haven’t heard any squeaking, not when I was under the house or sitting outside next to the bathroom vents. And she hasn’t been super determined to get back in, I only heard her a couple of times. Didn’t notice any teats, she’s a very small cat.
I don’t want her under there 'cause she tends to attract a lot of company who menace my cats. Plus I just don’t want cat crap under there either. There’s a whole colony of feral cats living under the house behind me and in the sheds of the house next door so there are lots of alternative places for a stray to hang out. Urgh, tomorrow I might remove the plumping access panel and look around some more.
Cats don’t have a “mating season” or anything like that. Female cats have cycles, just like female humans. Gestation period for cats is around 60 days, so if the kittens are newborn, the question becomes “how likely is it that this cat mated in October?”
Also note that newborn kittens are tiny (as in, you could likely fit three of them on the palm of your hand) so they might not be so easy to spot in the crawlspace under a house. They do squeak a lot, but if they’re really tiny it could be fairly inaudible - for a while. If they’re a bit older, I think you would probably hear them, especially if they are hungry. They also won’t move around much for the first week or two - they are born with their eyes closed, little fur, and barely functional legs.
Of course, none of this means there are certainly kittens in there. The adult cat could simply be expressing distress and annoyance at the disappearance of her home. I suppose it depends how much the situation concerns you, and how much work/inconvenience finding out would involve.
Cat cycles are also tied to food availability. If there’s plenty of food around, they’ll go into heat at just about any time. That’s why I don’t support feeding strays.
Yes, cats can have kittens in December. It’s not all that rare even up here in MA. Very common to have cats in heat in October, so they’d have the babies in December.
If you’re not POSITIVE that there are no kittens and that the female didn’t sneak back in and is now trapped, I think you should open the entry again. Within a couple of weeks, if there ARE kittens, you’ll probably be able to hear them, and they’ll start wandering a week or two after that. Once you’re sure they are not there, there are one-way barriers made for this purpose: they let that female adult out but she won’t be able to get back in.
Well, I just saw her outside so she’s definitely not trapped under the house. I also just realized that the crying noise I heard last night wasn’t her; it was from the big yellow tom cat that’s been after her. If she had kittens, I couldn’t imagine that would’ve been newborns; she spends most of her time hanging outside on the bedroom step and only bolted for under the house when I came close. Regardless, I’m gonna take a panel on the side of the bathroom (an area I couldn’t see well) and make sure there isn’t anything there.
Thanks for the responses y’all. I was trying to be careful but I kinda panicked and second-guessing myself when I heard a cat meowing last night.
let me tell you, a 3 day old kitten can scream the house down. malenka the miraculous was 3 -4 days old when we found her. she was screaming her teeni-tini little head off. i used echolocation to find her. for a kitten not even half a pound she could have given any opera singer a run for thier money.
the mother cat had been rescued early in the day, the neighbour didn’t know she had a kitten. malenka started screaming in the afternoon.
believe me, you would know if there were kittens under there. they would start screaming within 4 hours of momma not being there. the screaming thing doesn’t stop or slow down until they are around 4 months old.
Thanks for this, that makes me feel much more reassured. I was outside all day yesterday and didn’t hear anything. Plus I went and listened at all the vents the night before and nada. Here’s a pic of the female cat and her two suitors sitting on my bedroom steps. I think if she had just been blocked off from her kittens, she’d be a bit more distressed.
she would def. be very distressed. she would also be calling to the kittens, they would call back.
i could hear malenka through a storm door, door door, and she was under decking. she wasn’t under the house but about 3 feet from it. the amount of noise she would make was unbelievable. good thing in her case.