How Young Can A Kitten Leave Its Mom

Expect to separate the kittens from their mother when they are around 12 weeks old.

How young can a kitten leave its mom. While some kittens can go home earlier the closer you wait until 12 or 13 weeks the better off the kitten will be. First of all there is no set age on when the separation should be done. Kittens are kittens for many months letting yours stay with mum and siblings until 10 12 weeks ensures that you will get a well rounded kitten but he will still be young enough to enjoy much more time as a kitten. How soon can kittens leave their mother.

The time varies from one kitten to another since several factors come to play. That clever lady mother nature has designed cat mommies to encourage her kittens to leave the nest so that she can get busy with the next lot. Ideally kittens should go to their new home around 12 weeks of age. The perfect age seems to be between eight and twelve weeks.

Until kittens are a year old give them as much as they want to eat. At about eight weeks of age kittens are ready to leave the mother. 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.

By the way don t worry about mommy being upset when her babies leave. The organization cats international recommends keeping kittens with their fellow litter mates and mothers until about 8 weeks in age. Unlike puppies most kittens are unlikely to overeat and they won t get the bone and joint problems that fat puppies can develop. However a kitten is typically ready to leave his mother at about 8 to 12 weeks of age.

While most kittens are weaned by 8 10 weeks most experts recommend leaving kittens with their littermates until 12 13 weeks so they can be properly socialized. 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. In general it is safe to allow kittens to separate from the mother cat at this specific age but usually no younger than that. This can happen indoors or outdoors.

Kittens can also wander away and get lost or stuck in places where mom can t get to them.