What Age Are Kittens Ready To Leave Their Mother

Because kittens are still nursing from mom up to 8 weeks old and they are not 100 reliable for the litter pan.

What age are kittens ready to leave their mother. Kittens are generally ready to leave their mother and start eating regular food at about eight weeks of age. The liquid kitten food should gradually get thicker until it is a watered down canned kitten food or a moistened kitten kibble. In the wild kittens will usually stay with their mother until the mother becomes pregnant again when she will naturally begin to push them away in preparation for raising her new litter. Kittens are usually weaned at about 6 to 8 weeks and by three months 12 weeks the mother will leave them on their own.

In many cases kittens begin eating strictly solid foods at around 8 weeks and then may be ready to leave their mothers for good. 8 weeks the organization cats international recommends keeping kittens with their fellow litter mates and mothers until about 8 weeks in age. We have collected all the information you need to know about kittens between the time of their birth to the time when they are considered ready to leave their mother for your. Many people will tell you 6 8 and that is very unwise.

The ideal age to rehome is 10 12 weeks. Until this age kittens get all the nutrition they need from their mother s milk although they may start tasting their mother s food at four weeks old. This is because they will need to stay with their mother to feed on her nutritious milk as well as stay with their siblings to learn valuable social skills. During this time the kittens will still occasionally nurse on their mother but they will also start to eat liquid kitten food.

However because certain conditions may affect when kittens can leave their moms they must be well cared for when they leave their mother earlier than what is ideal. The best time to separate a kitten from their mother and siblings is when they are 12 13 weeks old. The time varies from one kitten to another since several factors come to play. Human care at that early stage may not compare to a feline mother s care but it can go a long way when combined with lots of love and dedication.

How soon can kittens leave their mother. Separating them at 8 weeks could therefore cause illness. However a kitten is typically ready to leave his mother at about 8 to 12 weeks of age. Many if not all good cat breeders strongly advise that you should not.

Another key factor is that their immune systems are still developing and to some extent dependant on antibodies in their mother s milk. If the queen does not have any further litters or lives as part of a colony of cats the kittens will begin to gradually draw away as they reach sexual maturity and set out in search of mates of their own.