My Mother Told Me To Cage The Kittens If I Want Them To Live, When Will I Release Them?

I'm pretty sure they are at 8 weeks old, because I always see their mother cat in our neighborhood and I know she gave birth at around March the 20th. She brought them to our garage 3 weeks ago, and since then they lived under our car which we never use.

Tonight my mother told me to cage them if I wanted to them live, because they have started to roam out into the road, and there is a danger they will get hit by car. We live in a small type of townhomes/subdivision of a village. Our garage is immediately attached to the road, and there are at least 3-5 cars that pass by every hour during the day. Kittens have been hit before in our neighbor, so I followed my mother's sensible advice, and I caged them tonight.

I plan to feed them properly and have them vaccinated too, because some other cats here got panleukopenia earlier this year; and also their mother finally spayed this month.

But I only caught 3 of the 4 kittens, the last one was really skittish and was running all over the place, and I didn't really now how to catch her? But the bigger question that's worrying me are how and when will I know it will be safe to release them? I want them to learn to street smarts like the other cats here who grew to adulthood.

As I said we live in a small gated village. There are a lot of outdoor cats that roam free here in the neighborhood, they get fed by us and other neighbors who want to feed them, their mother is one of them. We also have a lot cats already indoors, so we can't bring this batch of kittens inside.

Hi! by the way,

I'm not sure if this will be of help:

Kitten Development Stages - Illustrated Guide

Oh, and just in case, and you may want to weigh them fairly frequently even though they're a little older;

The Essentials Of Kitten Nutrition

Yeah honestly caging them is the best way to go especially if the goal is to have them vetted and adopted out. At 8 weeks old they can be socialized and kept indoors. Very frequently people cage them to socialize them (I do this too). No matter what age they are they are at risk from cars and other dangers from being outdoors. Animals just cannot comprehend the speed that cars travel so it's always going to be risky.

If they are not spayed/ neutered and are released they will breed and next year there will be more cats and it becomes an ongoing problem and quite honestly a gut-wrenching amount of worrying.

If you can, reach out to rescue groups in your area. Since you've caged them half the battle is already won. You can socialize them and get help with full vetting and they can go on to be adopted out to loving homes and momma cat can get trapped and spayed so you don't have little ones to worry constantly. If you have the space and the will to get them socialized then rescue groups are likely to help (at least in the US) because space is a big problem for these organizations.

Locally facebook is a great resource. If you do a search on your state or country and cat rescue, cat fostering etc you will find a group where you can post and get local help. I find that rescues are very willing to help people who are new to it.

Okay thanks for the response guys,

The vet arrived earlier today, I was supposed to have them vaccinated already, but the vet didn't do it yet, because some of them have liquid stool, I don't know which of them yet, since they are all in a single cage.

He recommended that each be isolated to find out who is pooping water, it's a problem again for me, because i'm out of cages, I only have 2, so it's 2 for each cage max. I need to get it right, we were able to pinpoint one i think, when the vet observe their buttholes

We de-wormed them though, I hope it's just worms that's causing their diarreah, and not the dreaded panleukopenia, the vet also prescribed an anti-diarrhea and anti-infective (LC-Scour) medicine. And I'm supposed to observe them for a week,

Thank you so much for helping them, you are absolutely doing the right thing.



Little kittens aren't going to be able to move around that much, so how about getting some giant cardboard boxes, from a furniture store or home supplies shop, and keeping each kitten isolated in a cardboard box? It would only have to be for a day or so, while you figure out which kitten has the stomach problem.

(In my experience, once one kitten in a litter gets sick the others all do too, so isolating them might not really be necessary.)

Did you catch the fourth kitten? Is he/she still around?

At 8 weeks old they can be socialised and re-homed, which would be a lot better than letting them live as feral cats. Try to handle them as much as possible now, it will really make things easier.

We have lots of people on TCS who can give you advice on socialising, re-homing etc, but for now fingers crossed that they're all healthy when the vet comes again.

I would get on facebook and find homes for them. Living next to a busy street, no matter how street wise they are, eventually a car will get them. I just had a 12 year old die. Please have then spayed or neutered or have the people promise to do so.

Yeah I caught the fourth kitten before the vet arrived today.

Thanks for the cardboard box tip. We do have lot of cardboard boxes around, but i think the one you are referring to are the large ones used for sofas and furniture. I really don't know where I can get those, the ones we have are the those from the supermarket where cans are packed, but they are too small and the cats can escape

The problem too is space, there is a lack of space for multiple housing in our garage, their current setup is already plonked above the hood of our car which I was talking about, and it's taking already all the space there. I might have to place the next one on the roof of the car.

I can bring them inside to my grandma's old house just beside ours. But that's where I quarantined the cats that got panleukopenia earlier this year while they were recovering. So I'm afraid to bring them there.

I just fed them right now too, one of them pooped solid stool, but I failed to catch who was it. From now on, I will take time to watch them for awhile after they eat. Two of them are also almost identical twins, and the tape mark that the vet placed on one of them he believe was pooping bad got removed tonight.

Another problem that began now, is their prescribed medicine, they don't like it, one of them actually went wild when it landed in/on his mouth/tongue. And it also just bubbled outside their mouth. My father was already helping me, and he was the one who held them as I administer the med, but it was a very messy and difficult.

I'm having trouble in this regard of giving them the meds, and any advice would help. I'm thinking of diluting it in water. But I'm gonna try to contact the vet about this tomorrow, and ask what to do.

As for our roads in our neighborhood it's really not that busy, just around 2 to 5 cars per hour. And the adult cats here know how to manage them, they do move to the side of the road when they hear a car. I only know of one incident where an adult was hit by a car, but that was I think around 7 years ago. But I guess for every one cat that learns his way to grow to adulthood, there a multiple of them that don't as kittens. That's why I decided to follow my mother's advice for this, and caged them.

Thanks for the advice too guys, besides seeking other advice and opinion, I post here to get an outlet for my worries.

I don't know the generic name of the medicine for other countries, I think this name and brand is only manufactured and distributed here in the Philippines

MDavout said:

I post here to get an outlet for my worries.

Click to expand...

I'm glad that you feel that you can do this

I can't help with the medicine - your vet is a good source for that, however I think the boxes don't have to be super large.

Are these full boxes or just the bottoms? If they're complete boxes, or at least ones with relatively tall sides you could possibly cut one side out, and then slide two together to make one larger one maybe, ? plus if I understand correctly this would only need to be until you can determine which kittens have the watery poop?

What kind of medicine is it, liquid or tablets?

Taste a tiny bit of it, that way you will know how strong the taste is. Very bitter medicines shouldn't be diluted as it means there is more of the meds to try and get the kittens to swallow.

This video shows you how to give pills to cats, but if it's a liquid medication you can use the same technique to restrain the kittens while you syringe the liquid into their mouths.


It's probably not a good idea to move the kittens to your grand mother's house. The panleukopenia virus is contagious for a very long time.

Even the most street savy cat is at risk of getting hit by a car, especially when you have humans who don't obey traffic rules. Then there's cat fights, other predators, illness, etc. It's rough being out on your own, but it is nice that you and your neighbors look out for them. If at all possible, it really would be best if the kittens were socialized and adopted where they wouldn't have to fend for themselves, have regular meals, and vet care.

I agree with the above comment that if one kitten is sick/ infected/ infested, assume they all are. Mother cats pass on all kinds of things to their young, and kittens naturally being so close together when they are born can quickly pass things along to each other. If you manage to single one out for treatment and another kitten develops similar symptoms, you could end up stuck in a cycle vs just treating them all in one shot.

As for meds, you can try to mix it in something tasty but you could run the risk of improper dosage if it doesn't get eaten. I've personally just stuck the syringe towards the back of the mouth (not down the throat) and push the pump. It sounds awful, but it's the easiest way to not waste meds or have it spit out. The cats will forgive you when it's all over.

I always put liquid meds in a small amount of a smelly juice, like canned tuna or salmon juice. It disguises the smell. Then feed them the rest when they are done.