When Does A Kitten Leave Its Mother
How soon can kittens leave their mother.
When does a kitten leave its mother. Kittens in the wild remain with their mother until they reach sexual maturity or until the mother becomes pregnant again. 6 2k views view 1 upvoter. The weaning process usually continues for about another month until the kittens are fully weaned between eight and 10 weeks of age. 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.
In the wild mother cats usually leave their kittens when they are adults to hunt by themselves but in cities mother cats live with their kittens. In the wild kittens will usually stay with their mother until the mother becomes pregnant again when she will naturally begin to push them away in preparation for raising her new litter. As a way to prepare for her new litter she will start to distance herself from the old litter. 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.
During this time the kittens will still occasionally nurse on their mother but they will also start to eat liquid kitten food. There is no real time frame for this to happen. This process could take from a few months up to a year and would be the natural way for a kitten to be separated from its mother. The best time to separate a kitten from their mother and siblings is when they are 12 13 weeks old.
In general try to wait until the kittens are weaned about 8 weeks. Once the kittens are fully weaned around 10 to 12 weeks old they are old enough to move away from their mama. Expect to separate the kittens from their mother when they are around 12 weeks old. However a kitten is typically ready to leave his mother at about 8 to 12 weeks of age.
The time varies from one kitten to another since several factors come to play. First of all there is no set age on when the separation should be done.