Any cat breeders had a kitten THIS small?

[Madwife123]

We have 2 week old Ragdoll kittens. 6 in the litter and 1 of them is TINY. Less than half the size of the others.

At birth he was so small we thought he wouldn’t survive but 2 weeks on he’s going strong, feeding well and seems perfectly healthy, except his size.

We’ve had runts before but never such a vast difference. This kitten looks like it’s from a whole different litter!

Is he likely to always be this small? Could there be an underlying problem causing him to be so small? He seems well so I’m reluctant to take him the vets and risk infection etc. but equally don’t want to be missing doing something that we could do to help him.

These photos show the size difference at birth and also now at 2 weeks old. He is clearly growing but not catching up to the others.

I see from the link you posted that Malin shared a placenta, so an identical twin. So he can't have any form of dwarfism etc. I'm guessing some form of twin to twin syndrome. I'm really invested in his progress now even though I don't have cats! How great that you are a midwife for humans and cats.

Possibly shared a placenta.

Mum ate it so quick that I didn’t get a good look at it but she delivered 2 kittens simultaneously and then 1 placenta. So either 1 placenta or 2 tangled up together.

My midwife head was questioning twin to twin as the kitten that delivered alongside Malin is the biggest in the litter. But no way of knowing for sure either way.

@Madwife123 I'm guessing that if they are twins, they would have identical markings.

Yes time will tell.

All Ragdoll’s are born pure white and the colour develops later as they have heat sensitive fur so once they are fully developed we will see.

Can twin to twin transfusion syndrome happen in cats? That would make sense if that's what it is. In which case little titch should hopefully thrive now he's out of the womb 🤞

No idea.

Identical twin kittens can happen in cats although it’s very rare. So theoretically if identical twinning can happen then twin to twin transfusion can happen. But as cats are generally not scanned in pregnancy and the scans are not clear enough to see placentas and blood flow through the umbilical cord etc. it wouldn’t ever be detected.

Add to the fact that cats eat the placentas immediately at delivery and so you don’t get an opportunity to examine the placenta. Plus placental histology isn’t a thing in cats like it is in humans you wouldn’t ever know about. You would usually have a small stillborn kitten or a reabsorbed kitten and be none the wiser as to the cause of it.

When the kittens are big enough, if these 2 do in fact look identical I’m going to DNA test them and find out for sure. I’m fascinated by genetics and embryology in general.