Pregnancy in a cat lasts about 65 days or nine weeks. But since each cat has its own peculiarities of the organism, different pregnancies take place, the duration from 58 to 72 days is also the norm.
Kittens that were born a week before the term, most often are not viable. In a cat with a large litter, the pregnancy lasts a little less, and for a female who is exposed to stresses before delivery, the kittens may appear a week after the expected delivery .
The first signs of pregnancy in a cat
Pregnancy tests for cats do not exist. If you want to determine exactly whether your pet has become pregnant, you can do an ultrasound or an X-ray. These are the most reliable methods of early diagnosis of pregnancy in cats. But they are done after three weeks of the proposed pregnancy. Before, neither the doctor can not feel anything, nor the ultrasound will show anything.
Experienced breeders can determine by some indirect signs about the onset of pregnancy in a cat:
- When a cat visits a cat, it immediately resumes its cries when returning home, but if it starts screaming in a week, it means that they did not succeed;
- The cat's estrus ceased immediately after communicating with the cat;
- if after a love meeting the cat stopped talking at all.
How does pregnancy take place in cats?
However, all these signs, of course, only suggest pregnancy. As a rule, it is possible to learn more accurately about the pregnancy of a cat by her nipples: after three weeks after mating, they are rounded and acquire a pink color, which is most noticeable if pregnancy is the first. Activity in a cat falls, appetite disappears, sometimes in the mornings can even be vomiting. This is due to the hormonal rearrangement in the female body. All these ailments usually disappear within a few days.
At a period of four to five weeks, the belly of a cat is rounded. The embryos are already so grown up that they are clearly felt in the abdominal cavity. In this case, be very careful, since a strong and abrupt depression can cause miscarriage.
At six weeks with multiple pregnancies, the stomach in the cat greatly increases in volume. After the seventh week, the kittens begin to actively move in the abdomen of the mother and you can already feel their heads. By the eighth week the female becomes restless, she is looking for a secluded place for future offspring.
At the ninth week of pregnancy, the female has mammary glands enlarged, nipples swell, from which it is possible to squeeze out a droplet of colostrum - a liquid similar to milk. Before delivery, minor discharge from the vulva may appear. During this period, the cat becomes passive. So, the kittens are about to appear.