Male Cats Can't Nurse Kittens

Soooooooo, I made a rather awkward cat error. I'd trapped three five week old kittens at the barn out in Millersburg. The rancher told me the mother was the all black. I wasn't so sure later, after rabbit hutching the all black and sticking the three young kittens in the hutch with the all black. The black cat looked perplexed, confused. I thought "Well, she's feral and scared is all."

But, nonetheless, I told the rancher the black cat didn't seem very interested in those kittens. I don't think she's the mother, I told him. He said "Sure she is. You caught the smaller black cat, right?" Well then I saw another all black and I thought, 'Ok, that must be the mom' and I trapped that one, who was an obvious big male.

The kittens seemed very happy, however, with the black cat in the rabbit hutch, eating wet food, lots of it, I put out for them all, and cuddling on top and next to the all black, who would stare at me with wide eyes and a confused look. I wasn't so sure, but I was tired out and I hadn't checked the cats' sex or lactation status. It was dark, too. So I just took the word of the rancher on it and called it good.

After all, the kittens loved the black cat. The torti inside the hutch with them, however, was another story. She would hiss at me and at the kittens.

I trapped ten adults at the barn in total. I took 9 of the barn adults plus two cats trapped in a shed behind the barn owners house, plus the three kittens, to the Neuterscooter clinic today in Veneta. All 14, even the three kittens, were fixed.

The black cat was a male. Yup, a male. An adult in tact male. Males can't nurse kittens.

Now I understand the looks he was giving me, when I handed him over the kittens with a big feel good smile. I had told the kittens, on the way in, after trapping them Monday night, that I had a big surprise for them---their mother!

I was somewhat disappointed by the lackluster big family reunion I had anticipated, but I felt pretty good about myself nonetheless.

The torti had hissed at the kittens because she was pregnant.

In the 10 adults I trapped at the barn, there was only one lactating female, the black and white, who had totally ignored the kittens. Once she was under, I looked at her mammary glands. Yeah, I gawked at her breasts when she was out cold.

She's not got much milk. She may have been going into heat again. The kittens are five to six weeks old.

There were three orange tabby males. There were two all black males. And there was one gray tabby on white male, with slight mustache.

There were four adult females from the barn---a pregnant torti teen, a very pregnant brown tabby, a pregnant gray tabby on white teen, and the barely lactating black and white.

From the behind the barn owners house, a very pregnant gray tabby on white was fixed, and a brown tabby male.

So, we have a winner. Miss Black and white is the lucky mother. Tonight, she will go into the rabbit hutch with the three kittens for the big family reunion! I bet it will be great. I can't wait.

The kittens--two males and one female. They were fixed, too. Except the black and white male is a crypt and she could not find the nondescended testicle at his tender age. So she tied off the tube. But, he will still produce hormones from the remaining testicle, although he will not be capable of impregnation. In three or four months, when he's bigger, he'll have to opened up and that lost testicle located, or he will think he's a little stud and act like one.

I looked at him, all wrapped up in a burrito towel for warmth and I said to Oscar of the Neuterscooter, "Don't you just feel like singing a song to look at him?" Maybe lyrics like "Little crypt man, going love you. Little Crpt, uh huh, got two chambers. Which one is pointing your way? Loaded little stud with something to prove. You got two. He gots one. Watch out, Little Crypt's gonna neuter you. Little Crypt, Little Crypt."

Well anyhow.

So, the big family reunion, this time I'm putting the kittens in with an actual female with milk and breasts. And that poor confused black male, well, sorry buddy. You were such a good sport about it. And man, you'd have made a great mother, if you ask me and those kittens.