She will choose her own place where she feels safe.

 

Yep, she will choose her own place where she feels safe. I have a friend who's mother feeds the ferals and there's one who constantly is having kittens. She is able to find the litter and move it later to a box on her porch where she can keep a closer eye and also play with them so she can find them homes. The mother usually lets her. She is on the tamer side and can be touched, but not picked up. The box is always there, but she never has kittens in it.

You might want to switch mama to kitten food now...The higher protein will help her as she's nursing. And when the kittens are ready to start eating, it's good for them too.

Do you have a plan for the kittens? If you can handle them and work with them, you should be able to find them homes. You might be able to find a trap-neuter-release program to help trap the mother to get her spayed too, as well as any other feral barn kitties you have.

 

You'll be lucky if you can find the kittens. It is unlikely she will choose what you set up.

Good nutrition is all she needs, and sounds like you are providing plenty of food. Cats really are very capable of taking care of themselves and their kittens.

The biggest threat to her kittens are any intact male cats. They will kill the kittens if they can find them. This brings the female back into heat, and then the male will mate with her and she will have his kittens.

So the BEST thing you can do is take any male cats to the vet to get them neutered. Of course folks will suggest you have your females spayed as well.

 

Thanks guys, I don't have any plans for the kittens. Bad as it sounds. But there are more than enough unwanted kittens in town without me adding to the problem. We live on a farm, mama is one of aprox 4 odd barn cats. We have only caught fleeting glimpses of the others. I have no idea who the father is. Not one of my cats, that's all I do know. They've all been spayed. I know they tend to pick their own place, the last cat who had kittens just had them under a bush in the veld which is kind of wheat i'm hoping to avoid. Dogs (the workers') other cats, Jackal, even Caracal are all very real dangers they face. I was thinking of something simple, like a Rubbermaid type plastic storage crate with a hole cut in the side. Just put it in a nice hidden space in the barn. If she uses it, great, if she doesn't, oh well! She seems to like hanging around in the barn. To the best of anybody's knowledge the barn is where the cats sleep, they're food and milk is in there. We need barn cats to keep the mouse population down, so the kittens will have jobs as mousers on the farm. If at all possible and if she will allow me I will tame the kittens, just so as to be able to check on their general health and give assistance if necessary.