When Can Kitten Leave Their Mum

The short answer is that kittens should stay with the mother cat until they are 12 16 weeks old.

When can kitten leave their mum. Timeline for weaning kittens mother cats will typically start to wean their kittens off their milk at one month of age. The earliest a kitten can leave its mother while you may want your kitten to stay as long as is needed with the mother the conditions on ground may leave you with no option. Why the wait is necessary.

A kitten should stay with his mother until a minimum of 10 weeks but preferably 12 weeks. The perfect age seems to be between eight and twelve weeks. In fact according to the cat fanciers association one of the ways to tell if a breeder is reputableis that he or she will never sell a kitten younger than 12 weeks old.

This does not mean that this is the time that the kittens can go home though. In many cases kittens begin eating strictly solid foods at around 8 weeks and then may be ready to leave their mothers for good. 8 weeks the organization cats international recommends keeping kittens with their fellow litter mates and mothers until about 8 weeks in age.

Twelve to thirteen weeks of age is the time that is almost universally considered to be the optimum earliest time to remove kittens from their queen and by this age the kittens should be ready to go out into the world and begin the next stage of their learning development. The best time to separate a kitten from their mother and siblings is when they are 12 13 weeks old. Kittens rely on their mother s milk for proper growth and development.

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. The next month of life is still full of essentials for a growing kitten even if it isn t consuming its mother s milk all of the time. Once the kittens are fully weaned around 10 to 12 weeks old they are old enough to move away from their mama.

By the way don t worry about mommy being upset when her babies leave. However a kitten is typically ready to leave his mother at about 8 to 12 weeks of age. Even though kittens are relatively independent by 8 10 weeks and can survive without their mother.