What Age Do Kittens Leave Their Mum
Kittens rely on their mother s milk for proper growth and development.
What age do kittens leave their mum. Nursing is mostly for comfort. The next month of life is still full of essentials for a growing kitten even if it isn t consuming its mother s milk all of the time. That clever lady mother nature has designed cat mommies to encourage her kittens to leave the nest so that she can get busy with the next lot. While you may want your kitten to stay as long as is needed with the mother the conditions on ground may leave you with no option.
8 weeks the organization cats international recommends keeping kittens with their fellow litter mates and mothers until about 8 weeks in age. The weaning process usually continues for about another month until the kittens are fully weaned between eight and 10 weeks of age. However a kitten is typically ready to leave his mother at about 8 to 12 weeks of age. In many cases kittens begin eating strictly solid foods at around 8 weeks and then may be ready to leave their mothers for good.
Twelve to thirteen weeks of age is the time that is almost universally considered to be the optimum earliest time to remove kittens from their queen and by this age the kittens should be ready to go out into the world and begin the next stage of their learning development. During this time the kittens will still occasionally nurse on their mother but they will also start to eat liquid kitten food. 6 8 weeks kittens are now eating 4 small meals a day but still nursing from mum. Despite this however you should ensure that the earliest your kitten leaves its mother is 4 weeks old.
The weaning process usually continues for about another month until the kittens are fully weaned between eight and 10 weeks of age. By the way don t worry about mommy being upset when her babies leave. Once the kittens are fully weaned around 10 to 12 weeks old they are old enough to move away from their mama. The time varies from one kitten to another since several factors come to play.