handleing newborn kittens

[rescue-mom]

I have seen alot of threads lately about people wearing gloves and scared mom will reject kittens if handled....Is it true?

I have handled kittens as young as 2 days old and some even when newly born and not one mother rejected them,I am just curious.I have had 11 pregnant mothers in my care and 62 kittens.

 

[orientalslave]

Neither me or either of my friends that have reared kittens have worn gloves.  As a matter of course I would wash my hands before and after, and for the first week I only handle them to weigh them once a day.  Once their eyes and ears start to open I handle a little more - stoking - but if they start to cry I put them down immediately.  I also put them down if mum look anxious.  I've never had the experience of a really stressed mum, but if it looked like even just weighing them upset her I'd stop doing it.

 

[StefanZ]

I have seen alot of threads lately about people wearing gloves and scared mom will reject kittens if handled....Is it true?

Not in our forums.  there was 1 such a question. I told the fosterer if it made her happy and feel more secure, so please, she could use gloves.  But it was not the common.

Something like that.

Other commentators didnt used gloves, and even advised against, as it is good for the kitten to become used to human hands.   (and thus, overdone washing before is not advisable either).

[edit. What I said several times, Gloves are advisable at the self catching of a semiferale. Not because of smells, but a semiferale is often desperate at the moment of  catching, and thus fights for live.  But afterwards, when they are let go into the fostering room and did calmed down, there is no real danger. They may hiss, they may swat, but hardly ever they do attack].

No it seems to be in much a myth moms reject kittens if they are handled. 

Defintely not true for fostered cats, even when the mom is feral.

But possibly it is not really true for free living cat moms either.  We had a striking example in the Premier forum a couple of months ago.  A semiferal mom abondons a sick kitten. A teenager girl finds this kitten, tries to save it. She managed to find online one of our most experienced forumists by her kitten rescue site, and guided by her advices - manages to successfully treat the kitten.  After a week, when the kitten is apparently OK, she tries to leave back the kitten near the moms nest.  The mom finds the kittens, sniffs, searches... Does accept!!!, carries the kitten into the nest!... 

A true story of the advent of a real  saint?  A saint of our time?   I myself think so.

But also a wonderful striking example some old tales may be more or less just - tales.