When Can Kitten Leave Their Mom
The short answer is that kittens should stay with the mother cat until they are 12 16 weeks old.
When can kitten leave their mom. If you want to provide extra nutrition you could drop by a vet clinic and buy a few cans of food for kittens that are packed with nutrition to support them. First of all there is no set age on when the separation should be done. A kitten should stay with his mother until a minimum of 10 weeks but preferably 12 weeks. However a kitten is typically ready to leave his mother at about 8 to 12 weeks of age.
Kittens can leave their mother by the eighth week and by this time they would have developed socially physically and emotionally. How soon can kittens leave their mother. This does not mean that this is the time that the kittens can go home though. Kittens rely on their mother s milk for proper growth and development.
But at this age they still have valuable skills to learn and they also have to receive their first vaccinations. So the best time for them to be separated from their mother is at 12 weeks. 8 weeks the organization cats international recommends keeping kittens with their fellow litter mates and mothers until about 8 weeks in 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.
So when can kittens leave their mothers. The time varies from one kitten to another since several factors come to play. Timeline for weaning kittens mother cats will typically start to wean their kittens off their milk at one month of age. If the kittens are on solid food no doubt they will be just fine from here on out so 7 weeks is a safe age to adopt a kitten.
Curious as to why this is the recommended age span. This is because they will need to stay with their mother to feed on her nutritious milk as well as stay with their siblings to learn valuable social skills. By the way don t worry about mommy being upset when her babies leave. In fact according to the cat fanciers association one of the ways to tell if a breeder is reputableis that he or she will never sell a kitten younger than 12 weeks old.
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. Even though kittens are relatively independent by 8 10 weeks and can survive without their mother. In many cases kittens begin eating strictly solid foods at around 8 weeks and then may be ready to leave their mothers for good. The earliest a kitten can leave its mother 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.
Benefits of staying with the mother and siblings. The perfect age seems to be between eight and twelve weeks.