22 THE DOMESTIC AND LONG-HAIRED CAT 



CHAPTER X 



Kittens 



The first four weeks of the kittens' life 

 should be left to the mother, providing the 

 mother is a healthy normal cat with plenty of 

 nurse. Soon as the kits are born and the mother 

 has cared for them, see that each one is getting 

 nourishment. If they are satisfied, they will 

 soon cuddle up and spend most of the time for 

 the first two weeks sleeping and wiggling about 

 the mother. If they cry continually, the mother 

 may not have enough milk and it may be nec- 

 essary to procure a foster mother, or to feed 

 with a medicine dropper equal parts of warm 

 water and evaporated milk, every hour, about 

 two droppers' full at a feeding. A foster- 

 mother is best, but the average queen should 

 be able to nurse her own kits, unless it is an un- 

 usually large litter. It is then advisable to 

 pick out the weaklings or poorer specimens 

 and humanely put them to sleep. I consider 

 five kittens as large a litter as one cat can 

 mother; no more than one litter should be taken 

 from a queen in a year. There are many cases 

 of queens being bred for two and even three 

 times a year, but poor stock is the result or the 

 queen leaves off breeding while young, or she 



