When is kitten season in california

Every year at Town Cats, we encounter numerous cats and kittens needing our help. One female cat can produce an average of 21 kittens per year! Many of these kittens are born outside and found by good samaritans. Typically, when a feral mom cat is around, her kittens will be left with her until they are old enough to be weaned. If mom is friendly, she can go to a foster home with her babies and adopted as well.

Shelters and rescues are always near capacity during kitten season because litters can range from four to seven kittens; we even had a litter of eight this year! As you can imagine, with that many kittens requiring care, the need for compassionate fosters is vast. Fostering allows these kittens to spend their early life in homes instead of at the shelter, which reduces illness and increased sociability in the cat.

Our foster program in was led by our new Foster Coordinator, Rylee Garrett. A female cat in heat is ready to meet a male mate and conceive kittens. Female cats are only in heat during certain times throughout the year. This is usually during kitten season. In fact, you can generally spay or neuter your cat once they weigh at least 2 pounds, which is usually when they are about 8 weeks old. After pregnancy, a female cat gives birth to a group of baby kittens called a litter.

A cat in heat eventually gives birth to an average of 4 to 8 kittens. A cat can also conceive more than one litter at once! Yup, you read that correctly. A cat can give birth to kittens with multiple fathers at the same time. This is a result of mating with different male cats within a period of seven days.

Thank you for reading and call our stores today to ask how you can help us out during kitten season! Click here to apply to be a foster online! Though there is a lot of cuteness. Here are the answers to some frequently asked questions about kitten season:. What is kitten season, you ask? As winter draws to a close and the weather begins to warm, many unaltered female cats are in heat.

Sixty days later they begin giving birth to litters of kittens. Kitten season occurs usually twice a year, and in colder areas, once a year. California is unique in that they have kitten season on average twice a year because of the warmer weather. It is possible that cats can have kittens in other times of the year as well. Kitten season is usually in line with when cats go into heat. November, December and January are colder months and cats usually go into heat when the weather gets nicer.

When a cat is in heat, the cat is ready to meet a mate and conceive kittens. There are only certain periods of the year when cats are in heat and that is in line with the weather, as described above.