What Age Can Kittens Leave Their Mothers

More specifically there are three main reasons for our 12 14 week recommendation.

What age can kittens leave their mothers. There is no real time frame for this to happen. A kitten should stay with his mother until a minimum of 10 weeks but preferably 12 weeks. By waiting until the kitten is 12 14 weeks old you will have minimized the risk for health and behavioral issues and maximized the chance for getting a healthy and happy cat. In many cases kittens begin eating strictly solid foods at around 8 weeks and then may be ready to leave their mothers for good.

Kittens rely on their mother s milk for proper growth and development. The perfect age seems to be between eight and twelve weeks. Taking kittens from their mother too early can lead to a variety of development problems. The weaning process usually continues for about another month until the kittens are fully weaned between eight and 10 weeks of age.

Why the wait is necessary. First of all there is no set age on when the separation should be done. Mother cats begin to wean their litter around 4 5 weeks and it can last several weeks as they bounce between nursing and eating and killing things. At what age can you take kittens away from their mother.

6 2k views view 1 upvoter. Despite this however you should ensure that the earliest your kitten leaves its mother is 4 weeks old. The time varies from one kitten to another since several factors come to play. However a kitten is typically ready to leave his mother at about 8 to 12 weeks of age.

That clever lady mother nature has designed cat mommies to encourage her kittens to leave the nest so that she can get busy with the next lot. Twelve to thirteen weeks of age is the time that is almost universally considered to be the optimum earliest time to remove kittens from their queen and by this age the kittens should be ready to go out into the world and begin the next stage of their learning development. By the way don t worry about mommy being upset when her babies leave. The next month of life is still full of essentials for a growing kitten even if it isn t consuming its mother s milk all of the time.

Benefits of staying with the mother and siblings. While you may want your kitten to stay as long as is needed with the mother the conditions on ground may leave you with no option.