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When Can Kittens Leave Their Mother – A Timeline

When Can Kittens Leave Their Mother – A Timeline

Most states have laws about when a kitten can be separated from its mother. Unfortunately, those laws don’t always consider the latest science and may not think about what’s best for your kitten in the long run. So, when can kittens leave their mother?

Generally, kittens can leave their mother at 8 weeks old. Most kittens are weaned at eight weeks and ready for other kinds of food. Legally, most kittens can be adopted at the same age.

Separating a kitten from their mother is typically fine if they’re old enough. However, advocates for safer and healthier animal breeding practices argue that 12-14 weeks would be a better marker in terms of your kitten’s social development and overall health. 

If this all seems a little complicated, don’t worry. We’ll talk about why there’s so much disagreement about when it’s safe to adopt a kitten away from its mother.

How Long Should A Kitten Stay With Their Mother

Different experts disagree on how long kittens should stay with their mothers. Most people agree that eight weeks is the minimum time a kitten should be kept with its mother and littermates. By eight weeks, your kitten will have hit several important milestones, including opening their eyes, starting to walk and jump on their own, and transitioning away from nursing as their primary food source.

But, many people think that eight weeks is still a little too early to start separating kittens and their mothers for a wide variety of reasons.

For instance, most kittens still have a lot of social development to do, and it’s unusual for kittens to be accepted by other pets in their new home for several weeks. That can mean some developmental delays, or even missed milestones, in kittens that are adopted too early.

Still, the practice of adopting kittens at eight weeks is common enough that most people think it’s safe enough, even if it’s not ideal.

Part of the question here is also about balancing breeder costs with profits. It’s in a breeder’s best interest to adopt as many kittens as possible, but breeding too quickly or adopting too early can cause serious problems. Eight weeks is an excellent middle ground between a kitten’s development and the cost of adopting a kitten vs. the breeder’s expenses.

Of course, breeding priorities don’t necessarily have to influence rescued cat adoptions, but breeders often significantly affect how the law is written.

Can You Give Kittens Away At 6 Weeks

In most places, it’s illegal to give kittens away at six weeks old if their mother is still with them. In some cases, you may be able to legally surrender 6-week old kittens to a shelter or rescue if their mother has rejected them or they are orphaned, but you cannot sell them.

Beyond the legal concerns, six weeks is also too young developmentally for most kittens unless there is a medical or social reason the kitten needs to be separated from its mother like if she refuses to nurse the kitten, it’s better to keep kittens with their mothers for as long as possible.

How Can You Tell How Old A Kitten Is

Telling a kitten’s age can be a bit tricky, but it’s essential if you want to make sure your kitten is legally old enough to be adopted before you bring them home.

Kittens grow quite a bit in those first few weeks of life, but even considering their fast growth, most kittens are about the same size when they hit certain ages. It would help if you also looked for developmental milestones to determine a kitten’s age.

Here are some essential ages when it comes to a kitten’s activity level, social development, and adaptability.

Birth to 1 Week: Kittens this age are helpless. They need a lot of care and attention from their mothers and cannot open their eyes when they are firstborn. By the end of the first week, most kittens will have started to open their eyes, but they probably won’t be completely open.

2 Weeks Old: At two weeks old, kittens need a little less care from their mother, but they’ll still spend most of their time either sleeping or eating. At this stage, it’s also common for kittens to pile on top of one another and cuddle most of the day, especially when their mom isn’t around. Kittens this old still can’t walk and won’t move much on their own.

Three Weeks Old: At three weeks, most kittens will start to change significantly. They’ll start showing signs of what sex they are and will begin to stand up and walk around more. This is when you’ll first start seeing personality, and play will become common. These kittens are still very small and will spend a lot of their time asleep.

4-5 Weeks: At 4-5 weeks old, kittens will be steadier on their feet and start to play more. They’re getting larger, but their heads are still usually big for their bodies, and they may be slightly clumsy. Kittens this age should spend time with people, and it’s important to start picking them up and handling them more if you want these kittens to be suitable pets.

6-7 Weeks: These kittens are starting to look more like what we expect a kitten to look like. They’re bigger, stronger, better coordinated, and a little more proportionate. This age is energetic, playful, and curious. Toward the end of the 7th week, most kittens will be weaned or nearly weaned.

8 Weeks: legally adaptable, these kittens are sleepless, play more, and are mainly coordinated and ready to live independently. They are usually weaned and should have some experience with wet food or kibble before getting adopted. Most kittens are big enough to be neutered at this age, and some kittens may be big enough to be spayed.

9+ Weeks: 9 weeks and on kittens start showing more personality and have a stronger need to socialize with humans. At this point, the kittens should be fully weaned, and they’ll have started to learn how to interact with adult cats as well as their littermates. These kittens are still young and have a long way to go before their adults, but they are bigger and much more independent than they used to be.

Every week improves these kitten’s social skills, size, and other social factors. Many reputable breeders wait until at least ten weeks to adopt, while some prefer to wait until 12-14. Unfortunately, few animal shelters have this option, and most shelter kittens are put up for adoption at eight weeks old.

Do Kittens Miss Their Mom

Kittens show some signs of missing their mom and their littermates for a little while after they are adopted, but not for very long.

Since cats are fairly independent predators, they don’t need other cats around to feel safe and secure once they’re old enough to start hunting for themselves.

That means that your cat will probably show some signs of separation anxiety or look for their mother for a few days, up to a month, but they will probably move on pretty quickly.

As long as you’re giving your new kitten a good home and ensuring all of its needs are well met, your kitten will do just fine without its mother. Plus, new relationships with you, any other pets or family members, and even roommates will help fill your kitten’s social needs.

Do Mom Cats Get Sad When Their Kitten Leaves

Mom cats have, sadly, evolved to be able to handle the loss of a kitten pretty well. In most cases, when a cat loses one of her kittens, she’ll look for that kitten and call for them for a couple of days, but no longer.

There are a few reasons for that. When a kitten gets lost or dies young, the mother cat still needs to take care of the rest of the kittens. Plus, since cats can be independent, older kittens can fend for themselves pretty well.

Most importantly, mother cats only have a strong drive to protect their kittens for so long. After a while, it’s more important to focus on their survival than their kittens.

Even in domesticated settings, those evolutionary traits help mother cats cope when their kittens are adopted. As long as the kitten wasn’t showing signs of distress before the adoption, your momma cat will probably be just fine in a couple of days.

When Do Kittens Start Eating Food And Drinking Water

A lot of states use the time kittens can eat and drink on their own as an important marker of when they’re ready to be adopted. Some kittens wean themselves as early as 6 or 7 weeks old, but most kittens aren’t fully weaned until they’re about eight weeks old.

In some cases, it may take longer for a kitten to be weaned. It’s rare for a kitten to still be nursing by ten weeks old, though.

Things To Consider

When it comes to kitten adoptions, not all kittens are ready at the same time. If you’re working with a breeder, you may get updates on your kitten’s social development, with recommendations of when they’re ready for adoption.

However, since shelters need to make room for new cats and kittens all the time, you may not have as much control over when you adopt your kitten if you work with a shelter.

While both experiences are very different, there are valid reasons to adopt a cat at eight weeks and valid reasons to adopt at 14 weeks.

No matter when you adopt your kitten or who you adopt them from, the main thing is that you make sure they have a good home with plenty of food, toys, water, and places for them to hide and feel safe.