Mother cat away from her week-old kittens for nearly 5 hours - normal or not?

[castille]

She has been great with the kittens so far, but this morning she shot out of the door at breakfast time (as she has been doing for the past few days) but we had to go out for the entire morning half an hour later, so had to shut the door.

I left a window open in the utility room (where the kittens are) for her but I've never seen her come in or out of this window - it's quite high and she can't see it's open from ground level as it's set back into the wall - and there is still no sign of her.

DH says she did the same on Monday and was gone for "a few hours" but it's been 5 hours now and we're a bit concerned.

Give the vet a ring. I'm sure they would be happy to help.

Is It possible your cat has come back into season, Not sure how soon after having kittens this can happen though!!

Or it may be possible she is going to someone elses house and being shut in

In my experience Mum doesn't usually stay away too long especially if kittens are not weaned. As They get older she will stay close by to keep a watch over them but wouldn't normally leave for hours on end.

How old are the kittens?

She's back

Kittens were born 6 days ago so I don't think she'll be back in season yet - the vet said a month.

I have no idea where she goes. She's not strictly our cat - she appeared 10 days ago looking hungry and lost and despite contacting every place we could think of no one has reported her missing so we have sort of adopted her. Then she had the kittens in our porch last week. I don't think she's being fed anywhere else as she seems to come back starving. Not suprising after nearly 6 hours.

I'm glad she's back at least she is safe and well!!

Its really unusual for a mum to dissapear so so soon after having babies...She has me stumped!!!

The only other thing i can suggest is to follow her the next time you let her out to see where she is going, if you can.

Well done for taking her in, i would have done the same, I am a sucker for needy cats

my kittens are going to be 7 weeks old tomorrow but their mummy doesn't leave them for more than about an hour and then she comes running in frantically looking for them

Now they are bigger, they could be anywhere

Since she got back (exhausted!) she has spent the entire afternoon lying down in her basket feeding the kittens and sleeping, and hasn't been out since.

She obviously crams all her day's outings into one. Not the best strategy maybe... but as long as she comes back we can live with it I suppose, stressful though it is.

our cat came back into season 3 weeks after birth once. not impossible and the most likely reason she'd leave for that long was if she was being hounded by a tom and didn't want to lead him to her kittens.