Allow the mom to clean them it helps her to gain strength by eating the after births.
The only time you should help her clean them is if there signs the mother is struggling.
If so use a dry paper towel to only wipe the babies down, do not use soap. And never leave the mother's side while doing so.
.
If you fear the mom might hurt the babies keep close eye on the mom when she is with he babies. She less likely hurt them with a person she is attached to near by.
But do not crowd the mom or touch the babies she may be feeling stressed. And a stressed mama cat eats her newborns.
If you see signs of her hurting them even with you around it is time to separate them and bottle feed.
But to the guest who post this it might of not just been you cleaned them. She could of been stressed or not been ready to be a mom. Or even could see they were not health. Mama cats sense these things.
There are already too many people not doing it, so enough kittens and puppies are being born. Why don't WE, sensible people, spay and neuter and not add to the problem of abandoned pets and stuffed shelters and killing stations.
Most shelters spay and neuter all animals that show up. Finding an animal that isn't fixed (barbaric term by the way) is far less likely than you seem to think. Sterilization of a species will kill that species off.
If shelters spay and neuter, then why are they still full of unwanted pets? Why are some cities plagued by stray dogs? Apparently it's not enough, by far! As a sensible pet owner, don't have litters. Do YOUR part!
A pet being fixed does not instantly make them a wanted pet. Whether or not they are capable of having children does not have any correlation to where they are abandoned or not. Whether or not they are capable of having children does not instantly make them get adopted. There is literally no correlation between a shelter fixing an animal and how many animals show up to said shelter. Most animals never leave the shelter once they get there. They spay and neuter them because they think people will be more likely to adopt an animal if they don't have to go to the vet to get fixed when in reality the increase is nominal.
From a logistical standpoint fixing pets would have negligible impact on the amount of abandoned animals seeing with the fact that abandoned infant animals are not going to survive. Some cities are plagued with stray dogs because people have a tendency to get a dog and throw it out when they get bored of it and repeat this every time they get the urge to get a dog.
Uh, @anthracite was saying that shelters being the only ones that spay/neuter is not enough to fight overpopulation and that pet owners need to do their part. You should read past the first sentence @bethorien.
My apologies. @anthracite’s comment having been downvoted and your reply being the next and in seemingly antagonistic opposition to it I did stop reading prematurely.
The flaw in the logic is that all stray animals are abomdoned. Spaying does not stop abandoned pets- it stops abandoned pets, or outdoor pets, from having babies which increases the number of pets without homes. Pets without homes are the primary reasons shelters exist- the shelters most pets never leave- because there are more pets without homes than people to take them in. So the point of fixing an animal isn’t to reduce abandonment, but to reduce the numbers of strays by lower birth rate; and the number of domestic litters that end up on the street having stray babies or being left at shelters because the owners couldn’t keep them and couldn’t home them- as can happen in a minute or less if two domestic animals in heat cross paths since male dog pretty much ejaculate on entry.
there is a flaw in your logic as well in that a litter abandoned without a parent to care for it will die. They will not survive to an age to be able to have children. Having responsible people spaying and neutering household pets does not decrease the amount of stray animals in the street as those that are not responsible enough to not abandon an animal will not be responsible enough to spay and neuter the animals. All it will do is slowly sterilize all of the animals in circulation which will slowly kill off breeds of animals in order of their likelihood of being homed by responsible people until the only animals left are those that were either stray or homed by irresponsible people who abandon them. Of those two categories a very large portion will have already been in a shelter once or twice meaning they are already spayed or neutered further decreasing the gene pool of the animals that are left.
I think you misunderstood or overlooked what I said. I didn’t say that the stray population was made up of orphaned kittens. I said that many strays and shelter animals are from litters that can’t be rehomed. So your argument does not address the issue of animals in the shelter, or abandoned adults to begin with. It also doesn’t address lost or run away adult pets- and on the subject of abandoned litters that couldn’t be rehomed- to be re homed the animal by definition needs to be at a point in development wherebit does not need a parent to care for it. Otherwise how would you give away a puppy and not the mother and all the other puppies if it still needed care from a parent? The idea that we would slowly kill off species of animals by selective breeding and sterilization is countered by.... over 10,000 years of successful agriculture, domestication, and wild life preservation. There are negatives to sterilization sure. When you adopt your new pet you don’t know them yet....
... they may become the love of your life and be a very special and unique animal- and as they age you may find yourself wishing you could raise their babies but be unable to. There’s also the fact that in a system where primarily feral animals are the primary reproductive stock, that generational domestication is hampered. Cats are a good example. Most house cats are fixed, so most rescue cats are street cats. There isn’t a solid line to allow incremental generational adaptation to domestication as much as there is to allow incremental generational adaptation to being able to survive on the streets in the presence of humans. And so that you don’t get me wrong- I do not think every animal should be fixed. I do however think that in most cases they should as most people lack the abilities to be responsible for everything that comes along with having litters. However random intermixing of species as opposed to breeding pedigrees helps to keep the gene pool fresh and allows adaptation.
"argument does not address the issue of animals in the shelter, or abandoned adults to begin with."
i already stated that shelter animals are sterilized during the arrival medical check. I also already said that abandoned adults will statistically be previously sterilized.
This isn't a matter of selective anything. The idea being argued against is the idea that all pet owners should sterilize their animals under the pretense that unresponsive owners will not which is how you kill off a species.
You literally are not reading what I say, or you’re missing huge chunks. I really don’t want to go back and connect all the dots of exactly where you replied to things I didn’t say, or rephrased your earlier responses without addressing a direct point. So I relent. Cats and dogs are in eminent danger of extinction due to fascists like Bob Barker. If we hurry up and contact the World wild life fund we may be able to get their status on the endangered species list upgrades in time to save them. I’d hate to see the mass extinction that happened with cows or horses happen to dogs and cats. So I bow out of the debate and wish you luck on your noble quest to save our furry friends.
Your hostility at being unable to continue a debate you came halfway into and attempted to change the goal posts of and subsequently angering at a lack of preexisting participant willingness to follow the change in goal posts has afforded you a loss of respect.
You don't get to come into an argument halfway through and try change the defense of someone else's point and then get pissy when the other side cherry picks bits of your argument that stick to the original debate. I expected better of you
Oh sweet baby James. There was no hostility. Frustration certainly, sarcasm yes, but all in fun. I will lose great amounts of sleep over this loss of respect I’m sure, and the fact you would think I’d be unable to carry on a debate is laughable with how long you’ve been on this site to know better. I would question more the ability of anyone to read or want to keep reading my carrying on had had hoped to save everyone from that- but you have asked, and I would hate to dispoint especially when you have postured so grandly of your victory. So here we go...
In response to: “.... have your pets spayed and neutered- they aren’t live stock...” you say: “that's how we stop ever having pets again” patently false. Breeders do not slay or neuter animals, as long as there is demand there are breeders. If the availability of pets suddenly plummeted- demand would increase and breeders would be financially incentivized to meet it, ensuring continued strings of animals. That’s not including countries where such practices aren’t common.
You: “Most shelters spay and neuter all animals that show up. Finding an animal that isn't fixed (barbaric term by the way) is far less likely than you seem to think. Sterilization of a species will kill that species off.” yes. No one is arguing that sterilizing a whole species doesn’t lead to extinction. But as per previous- no one is advocating sterilizing a whole species, and there wouldn’t be such push to fix animals if it were so uncommon to find them unaltered.
Now getting to our part:
You say: “A pet being fixed does not instantly make them a wanted pet. Whether or not they are capable of having children does not have any correlation to where they are abandoned or not. Whether or not they are capable of having children does not instantly make them get adopted. There is literally no correlation between a shelter fixing an animal and how many animals show up to said shelter. Most animals never leave the shelter once they get....” I reply to this with: “The flaw in the logic is that all stray animals are abomdoned. Spaying does not stop abandoned pets- it stops abandoned pets, or outdoor pets, from having babies which increases the number of pets without homes. Pets without homes are the primary reasons shelters exist- the shelters most pets never leave- because there are more pets without homes than people to take them in. So the point of fixing an animal isn’t to reduce abandonment, but to reduce the numbers of strays by lower birth rate; and the number of domest..”
The point being that you contend that shelters sterilizing animals has no effect on how many animals end up in a shelter- but your statement is probably false. The very existence and over crowded state of shelters literally proves that there are more animals than homes for them. That means that lowering the birthdate would lower the number of animals in shelters because there is a surplus of animals. A single cat can have 180 kittens in a 15 year life span. A litter ranges 1-10 kittens. So even if only half the cats roaming the street only average 1 litter each in the 1-10 range in their lives, that is still an exponential population growth even with the average 2-16 year life span of feral cats, and the worst case 50% mortality rate.
You replied to my post with: “there is a flaw in your logic as well in that a litter abandoned without a parent to care for it will die. They will not survive to an age to be able to have children. Having responsible people spaying and neutering household pets does not decrease the amount of stray animals in the street as those that are not responsible enough to not abandon an animal will not be responsible enough to spay and neuter the animals. All it will do is slowly sterilize all of the animals in circulation which will slowly kill off breeds of animals in order of their likelihood of being homed by responsible people until the only animals left are those that were either stray or homed by irresponsible people who abandon them. Of those two categories a very large portion will have already been in a shelter once or twice meaning they are already spayed or neutered further decreasing the gene pool of the animals that are left.”
You restate the idea from the first...
... post I replied to and add a caveat about litters abandoned without parents to care for them. A pocket case, but a valid point. Yes. If you leave a 5 day old puppy alone it will almost 100% die. But in my original post I had referred to people abandoning unwanted babies or those they couldn’t rehomed. As I say in my next reply. You can’t really successfully rehome an animal that can’t yet function without its mother. So that point is valid but a pocket case and not the majority case. As for the idea of having “responsible people...” show me someone who drives drunk and says: “I can’t handle this.” Or who buy a dog saying “yeah. I’m going to fuck this up..” they exist- but most people think they’re responsible until or even after reality shows otherwise. Animals are often abandoned because someone moves for work, loses a home, has a baby- blah blah. There wasn’t an irresponsibility in the ownership of the animal- but now they can’t have an animal. Sometimes they can’t give the...
... time and training. Maybe other things change in life. That can be called irresponsible, but they never would have known or planned on it or they likely wouldn’t have brought the animal home unless they literally never cared for its well being. So the point is relative anyway. It’s like saying requiring drivers licenses or weapons training is an insult to responsible people. Has a kid ever shot someone with an adults gun where the adult said “oh yeah. I meant for that to happen...” or were they responsible until stuff happened?
I make a lengthy reply in which I use the phrase: “ I didn’t say that the stray population was made up of orphaned kittens. I said that many strays and shelter animals are from litters that can’t be rehomed. So your argument does not address the issue of animals in the shelter,...”
You pick the part: “your argument does not address the issue of animals in the shelter“ to begin your reply with- then gloss over the fact that I’ve now repeated at least 3 times at this point. That if what you say is true- how do you explain there being animals in animal shelters to start, or there being animals getting put down in animal shelters because they are too full?
If we are headed for a pet genocide- then where do all these animals come from? “Responsible people”? You haven’t addressed how animals end up in shelters- some by your own words multiple times. How unlucky can these animals be that owner after owner turns out to be not a “responsible person”?
Or is it more likely- that just as with children, even the best intentioned and most careful pet owners have accidents? A door left ajar or window open? A careless relative or contractor? A broken leash or a moment of distraction? A move, and unplanned litter of puppies, etc- and that they then send these animals to the shelter, where to be in the shelter multiple times- they must have had another owner who had a similar issue- and that unless their path to the shelter was a direct drop off- which most shelters either permanently or for some length ban anyone who drops off from adopting (outside certain exceptions)- that these animals spent some time unsupervised on the street and could have...
.. easily gotten pregnant? And if that is the case and we return to the circle of unwanted babies- wouldn’t the sound solution of a “responsible person” be that unless they know they have the means and skills to breed their animals and care and home ANY possible offspring- that they get the animal sterilized? Is that not sound logic? Not to sterilize every animal on earth, and not for those knowingly “responsible” to do so- but for anyone else who doesn’t actaully plan to follow through on breeding care?
I even made the concession and disclaimer in one of my earlier replies that yes- not every animal should be sterilized and yes, there are some possible long term issues with the process that can effect the species- that it wasn’t a closed door that sterilization was always the answer in all cases- but you chose to keep debating points that had already been debated without being answered. You accuse me of straying from the argument when it is in fact you who didn’t want to follow the train of your own logic because it goes somewhere you can’t defend- but to keep trying to steer back to where you are most comfortable.
He, as someone who should know better, broke etiquette multiple times. Of the many ways to aggravate me that is one of the easiest and will illicit the most Cunt-ly written responses
I don’t know why someone downvoted this. It’s true. The no touching or nonwashing kittens thing is urban legend. There are lots of reasons a mom will reject her kittens- she’s notneell, the baby isn’t well or is deformed, she’s scared or stressed, she’s confused... the list goes on. As for eating the babies- momma cats eat their babies for lots of reasons. One of the most common is believed to be a sort of protection reflex. That the mother takes the baby in her mouth and eats it on accident- or in a logical failing feels an immediate threat and doesn’t think she can protect the baby, so she eats it rather than let that threat get it. Many people have noticed mother cats reject healthy babies for seemingly no reason at all beyond not maybe liking just that one. If mother cats won’t care for a baby that doesn’t smell like them... how and why donsome cats foster the young of others..? Baby kittens are very fragile and shouldn’t be washed for many reasons unless necessary- but not this.
The only time you should help her clean them is if there signs the mother is struggling.
If so use a dry paper towel to only wipe the babies down, do not use soap. And never leave the mother's side while doing so.
.
If you fear the mom might hurt the babies keep close eye on the mom when she is with he babies. She less likely hurt them with a person she is attached to near by.
But do not crowd the mom or touch the babies she may be feeling stressed. And a stressed mama cat eats her newborns.
If you see signs of her hurting them even with you around it is time to separate them and bottle feed.
But to the guest who post this it might of not just been you cleaned them. She could of been stressed or not been ready to be a mom. Or even could see they were not health. Mama cats sense these things.
From a logistical standpoint fixing pets would have negligible impact on the amount of abandoned animals seeing with the fact that abandoned infant animals are not going to survive. Some cities are plagued with stray dogs because people have a tendency to get a dog and throw it out when they get bored of it and repeat this every time they get the urge to get a dog.
i already stated that shelter animals are sterilized during the arrival medical check. I also already said that abandoned adults will statistically be previously sterilized.
This isn't a matter of selective anything. The idea being argued against is the idea that all pet owners should sterilize their animals under the pretense that unresponsive owners will not which is how you kill off a species.
You don't get to come into an argument halfway through and try change the defense of someone else's point and then get pissy when the other side cherry picks bits of your argument that stick to the original debate. I expected better of you
You: “Most shelters spay and neuter all animals that show up. Finding an animal that isn't fixed (barbaric term by the way) is far less likely than you seem to think. Sterilization of a species will kill that species off.” yes. No one is arguing that sterilizing a whole species doesn’t lead to extinction. But as per previous- no one is advocating sterilizing a whole species, and there wouldn’t be such push to fix animals if it were so uncommon to find them unaltered.
Now getting to our part:
You restate the idea from the first...
You pick the part: “your argument does not address the issue of animals in the shelter“ to begin your reply with- then gloss over the fact that I’ve now repeated at least 3 times at this point. That if what you say is true- how do you explain there being animals in animal shelters to start, or there being animals getting put down in animal shelters because they are too full?
Or is it more likely- that just as with children, even the best intentioned and most careful pet owners have accidents? A door left ajar or window open? A careless relative or contractor? A broken leash or a moment of distraction? A move, and unplanned litter of puppies, etc- and that they then send these animals to the shelter, where to be in the shelter multiple times- they must have had another owner who had a similar issue- and that unless their path to the shelter was a direct drop off- which most shelters either permanently or for some length ban anyone who drops off from adopting (outside certain exceptions)- that these animals spent some time unsupervised on the street and could have...
(Not sure about the eating part, but she may abandon them...)