Cat about to be spayed, but still nursing 3 month old kittens! How to wean them?
I’ve made appointment for momma cat to be spayed, but she won’t wean her 3 kittens who are 3 months old! They eat kitten chow so don’t need to feed off her. Momma is still lactating and encourages them to nurse!
I separate them at times during the day and night, which upsets momma cat. The kittens just play and don’t seem to miss her at these times. Vet says kittens MUST be weaned by spay date. I thought she would have weaned them by now. And SHE wants to eat all the time.
I’ve cut back on her canned food but leave her kitten chow out all day. Vet says to cut back on her food and separate them. It's truly concerning and makes me feel sad.
Please help me, how should I wean them?
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The only way an animal can be forced to wean their young is to physically separate them at all times.
In this case, separate the mother cat from the kittens until after she has recovered from her spaying operation. There's a window of time where young can resume feeding off the mother after being weaned and you want to ensure you allow enough weeks to prevent this.
Keep an eye on the mother's weight. It doesn't hurt cats to be trim. Ensure though she has the nutrition to cover loss of nutrients due to feeding her young, even while weaning, as calcium is leached from the mother to produce milk. In this regard I'm referring to nutrition versus calories.
Mother cat may protest while they are separated and that is a difficulty you will all need to endure, unless you postpone the spaying date and so allow the weaning process to occur more at the mother's pace. With this comes the risk of another pregnancy, so she would need to be kept strictly indoors.
You have posted the question and the answer so it is a bit hard to help you.
The thing you might try is to feed the kittens their favorite food before they go to the mother for milk.
The thing you cannot do is to separate the kittens and the mother, separating them by force will create problems.
Kittens and cats need to have a fixed routine: play-eat-sleep. The thing you can do is to feed the kittens after they play, but before they go to the mother; so they are full and will drink less milk from the mother. As a result of doing this, the mother will (hopefully) produce progressively less milk so the kittens will be weaned this way.
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