My cat Taz had her kittens 4 weeks ago. She is young herself and I think not really ready to take care of her babies. From 2 weeks of age she would leave them for hours by themselves while she went exploring around and disappearing outside. If we didn't let her out she would still ignore them and be very destructive. Her appetite was huge, went from 1/2 a can morning, beans during day and 1/2 a can at night to about 4 full cans a day, plus dry food which she is still consuming. I got her kitten food to eat because I know it's higher in protein and good for her but really, she is so high maintenance thanks to my ex she just turns he nose up. She knows if she pesters him he will feed her canned food as she refuses to eat dry, and it's really frustrating me now financially and on a personal level because she was never like this before. 4 full cans plus beans plus snacks? She is a small skinny cat to start with and I find it hard to believe this is normal as my last cat that had a litter of 6 was a main coon and never ate that much. Taz is a DSH

One other thing she is doing now, is only feeding the kittens once a day. They seem OK and we are trying to wean them with kitten food, but it's a mission and when she feeds them she is terribly rough with them. If she sees they get more attention than her ( which they do, they won't settle unless one of us is there since she is never around) she grabs them by the throat and just about snaps their neck off. I'm at my wits end with this cat now. Oh, and she is on heat again, but we can't get her fixed until she has weaned :-\ What's the best thing to do about her behaviour? What is the correct amount for her to be eating after birth, is the appetite just a behaviour problem for attention?

How old is she? If she's not through growing herself, then she needs to eat enough to meet her needs, and produce enough milk for all the babies. How many of them are there? So yes, it may be that she needs that much food to meet all the demands being placed on her body. If this is her first litter, and she hasn't been around other queens, she may very well not really know what to do with the kittens. Motherhood is not all instinctive, and many animals lose their first litters to trial and error if they haven't had an older animal to watch and learn from.

And if she is in heat again, and you let her outside, she is going to get pregnant again. Realistically, about the best you can do is tough this one out and hope that things go back to normal once the kittens get new homes and Taz gets spayed.

[QUOTE=froggy7]How old is she?

She is a year old.