Is Your Cat Treading on Her Bedding? Get Ready For Kittens!

So your extremely round cat has been lying around the house for the past two weeks, eating enough food to keep a small donkey alive and generally looking very, very pregnant. For some time now, you’ve been able to see her kittens moving about in her belly quite clearly and you think that you have a fairly good idea of when she is due to give birth.

But if there was just one sign to alert you to the start of her labor, what would it be? For most of us, it would have to be something pretty unmistakable - few of us owners have the experience of overseeing the birth of several litters of kittens..

All the experts will give you a long list of ‘possibles’ to choose from. You can find them all in ‘Hey Mom! Fat Fred’s Having Kittens!’

For example, your cat will start calling to you and your first reaction will probably be that she asking for more food. I know that my two cats take the opportunity to hassle me for sustenence every time they hear me in the kitchen!

But with your pregnant cat,  you’ll find that she has no interest in the tasty morsels that you put down for her.

Don’t be puzzled by her apparantly unusual behavior. Bide your time and wait for just a short while longer until you see her seek out her chosen birthing place - her nesting box.

Of course, as a well-prepared owner, you have already constructed a suitable nesting box, haven’t you?  If not, you may have to give up your bed for awhile, if your cat has decided that this is where she will be giving birth!

But wherever your cat has chosen to have her kittens, she will make a bee-line for it and begin to ‘tread’ on her bedding. Once you witness this behavior, you can be 100% certain that her kittens are on their way.

I can just about guarantee that any owner, however inexperienced, will certainly recognise this unmistakable behavior as looks like a cross between digging in her litter box and the kneading action you see when she is relaxed and purring.

Why does a cat do it? Well, even  the experts don’t really know why cats tread their bedding immediately prior to the onset of their labor. But if you ask me, it’s probably no more complicated than a desire to arrange their immediate environment to their liking.

After all, your cat will be putting in a lot of hard work over the coming few hours and it’s just common sense that she will want to make herself as comfortable as possible!

Whatever the reason, treading on her bedding is a major sign that your cat’s labor is about to begin and it’s one that you simply miss.

She’s telling you ready - are you?

Cat Labor Signs

As you approach the end of your cat’s pregnancy, you need to be fully aware of the cat labor signs to watch out for. These will signal the beginning of the birth of your new kittens and will enable you to swing into action with your prepared cat birth plan!

You will have seen your lovely cat getting rounder and rounder over the last three or four weeks of her pregnancy and the excitement of the approaching birth of her kittens will be mounting.

Fortunately, there are a number of cat labor signs that will alert you to the fact that the big day has arrived.

The earliest indication that you will see is in the week immediately prior to the birth. Your cat will begin searching for a warm and secure place in which to deliver her kittens. Now, if you have taken the opportunity to learn all about what to expect during your cat’s pregnancy beforehand, you will already have prepared a suitable nesting box for her to use. This also enables you to steer her away from an inappropriate choice - inappropriate for you, that is - such as in the middle of your bed!

In the 24 hours immediately before going into labor, your cat may go off her food completely and become very clingy - following you around and calling to you repeatedly. These classic cat labor signs will probably be accompanied by her going in and out of her nesting box again and again and treading on the bedding, seemingly trying to arrange it to her liking.

The final cat labor sign to watch for is often that of your cat appearing to be uneasy whilst purring loudly at the same time. These are not conflicting signs, as many owners think, but just part of the overall preparations for labor that any female cat will normally go through.

When the first stage of cat labor is about to begin, your cat will have settled in her chosen birthing place and will be experiencing her first contractions. Her apparant unease will give way to rapid breathing or panting and you will know by these cat labor signs that the delivery will have begun.

Now will be the time that you have to be at your most vigilant. Cats giving birth in the wild generally do so during the hours of darkness and your domestic cat will probably do the same. You may lose some sleep but the end result of having a healthy litter of newborn kittens will be well worth the sacrifice!