Is Winky Pregnant???

For the last week or so Winky has been purring around me and will practically fall over with pleasure when I rub her belly. She will also knead the air when I rub her belly, and will even knead the ground when she eats.

I have no idea if this means she is pregnant. Her nipples aren't pinking up but they are slightly enlarged, but she also is not getting that big either.

Today she seemed to be trying to show me something in the old dog house we set up in the barn for the cats, so I grabbed a flashlight but couldn't see anything inside. I don't know what to make of this behavior. If she IS pregnant she isn't due for about two and a half to three weeks, and I can't really feel anything in her belly. If she is pregnant I think it happened around March 15.

Maybe she is in heat; and if she is in heat and goes outside and meets up with a tom cat, she will become pregnant. Have your considered spaying her?

Had she been around an intact male? If not, she can’t be pregnant. I agree with Ritz, that it sounds like she may be in heat. You can get her spayed while in heat.

Her barnmate is an intact Tom. There is another female and at least one super feral cat I don't know the gender of.

She and the Tom and the others are all my brother's cats; I don't have any say in what he decides to do with them. I keep telling him about the low cost vet clinics in the area and he's not willing to vet them yet due to cost. He also doesn't really have the same values of fetting barn cats the rest of us do especially since we don't know ho many are neighboring Amish cats, and the Amish definitely don't vet unless absolutely necessary for the health of the animal (and then it's questionable a la Victorian medical theories).

Since she’s been around an intact male, it’s very likely that she’s pregnant. Around this time is when you would start to see pinking up, so keep an eye on that.

This article has more info: How To Tell If My Cat Is Pregnant?

Is this her first litter?

I have no idea if it is her first litter. She and the others came with the farm my brother bought last year.

All the unspayed females will have at least 2 litters a year (sometimes 3, depending on the weather, but she probably would have had the first litter already if she were going to have 3 this summer), with an average of 4 kittens per litter. That's the reality of farm cats. A lot of rural-living newbies get themselves into a Situation because they don't realize that. Ask your brother what he'll do with an extra 20+ cats every year . Let's hope he doesn't plan to kill them as many farmers do .

Lol true. He and my sister in law are both very familiar with being farmers (we grew up on farms) but yeah. I had to tell my mum what age cats can give birth because she thought Winky was too young.......