Cat Chat Feline Forum

Does anyone know the average/estimated weekly mortality rate of kittens from 1st week up to 8th week?

I know that kitten deaths significantly drop if they survive their first week but i'd like to know their weekly survival chances.

I've never heard of one, given there a a lot of different factors, but I have fostered 252 cats/kittens, some years quite a few litters of kittens, and I can only remember two stillborn and two that were premature that didn't make it past 3 weeks old, but mum wasn't very good with them. To show how things can be affected, I did take in one mum and kitten, it was mum's 4th litter and none of them had survived as she was a poor mum but with hours spent relaxing her so she'd feed him, and early weaning, he did survive and is now 8 years old. I've also done top up feeds when mum's have had little milk to ensure they survive. So human intervention also plays a big part.

Not wishing to be controversial but ...

You're never going to get the truth about this. Breeders will tell you that outdoor cats have a life expectancy of 3 years, but usually forget to mention that this includes kitten mortality and is really for ferals. Then some breeders tell you how upset they were when they lost their first kittens, until they realised with support from their mentor that kitten mortality is nature. And then I wonder when we interfere with natural selection that has improved cats' skills and senses and had only the very best survive for millennia, and start to select by criteria of pretty colours and a ever more exaggerated specific features, if we do so at the expense of the strength of nature and if that's why the best care money can buy can't make up for what from nature's point of view might be a very poor genetic match.