If a cat has rabies will it pass to the kittens?

Question

There is a wild cat in my neighborhood and it recently had kittens. My friend wants to take them in because there is coyotes around. But,since the mother cat is wild she probably has some type of disease right? and if so can the kittens have it to?

Answer 1

If she did have rabies she long would have been dead...

If they are sick a good vet should be able to take care of it and vaccinate them. Good for your friend if she does take them in.  

Answer 2

Is she has rabies there is nothing you can do and rabies is easy to pass along. If you take the cat and/or kittens to the vet there is nothing the can do. There is not a test that can be done to detect rabies.

I had 3 kittens that got a hold of a sick bat (that the vet said had to have had rabies because it was alive, but just laying on the ground) and the vet said we could quarantine the kittens and would have to wait to and see, but that our other animals and family would have to have nothing to do with them because it's so contagious. We would have them leave them by themselves for weeks in a cage (and that seemed more cruel...to have kittens and pretty much abandon them for so long). The other option was have them put to sleep. He said the only way to find out for sure if an animal has rabies is by cutting off the head. We opted to having them put to sleep instead of possibly spreading the disease.

It's a hard decision to make, but if it is rabies you need to think about your safety, your family's safety, and the safety of other animals. It's very easy to have an outbreak of rabies, parvo, and distemper in a community if it is not taken care of.

Good luck and I hope everything works out.

Answer 3

yes to diseases passing to kittens.

rabies is unlikely, as she probably;y would kill them, or die before she raised them.

trap mom, bring to vet for a test.

kittens should not be brought in with out mom. give her a place in a garage, or under a deck.

Answer 4

If the cat had rabies, it would be dead in a few days.  It may have Feline HIV or Leukemia, but there is no way to know until tested, same with the kittens.  Rabies can only be transmitted through body fluids, so unless she has recently been bite by another rabid animal, and she has passed it to the kittens, I wouldn't think so.  The cat and kittens would be acting agitated and "just not right".

One thing to remember is the mother cat and kittens are feral - and they may remain so, even when adopting them as kittens.  One of the litters I rescued under my house had 3 brothers - Speedo, Rover and Spot.  Rover was never able to be housetrained or settle down, he is still wild-like, and ended up living as a barn cat on a horse farm.  Spot settled down and enjoys living in a house, but doesn't like to be picked up, cuddled with or any other contact with humans.  Speedo is the most loving, funniest cat I have come across - his best buddy is a 5 year old boxer, and you would have never thought he started out life as a feral.  The mother cat was spayed and released back to her colony after not working out in an adopted home, she is healthy - and happy on the farm.

So the moral of this story is don't expect too much from feral cats, but hope for the best. Definitely spay and neuter all the kittens and mother, there are no-cost or low-cost clinics in most cities.

Answer 5

YEP

Answer 6

If the cat had full blown rabies, she wouldn't take care of the kittens and if she did its passed through saliva and body fluids so yes the likelihood of the kittens having it would be great, though if the cat is showing no signs of it now, its not likely she has Rabies, though she can have other disease being that she is outdoors mostly. Its best you get her off the street now. Get her kittens too and spay and neuter them all so they dont produce more and more

IT is true, the only sure test for rabies is to test brain tissue, which in turn means all the animals need to be dead to test it. The only way they will do that is if the cats exhibited Rabies symptoms or bit someone unprovoked.