My cat had 2 kittens,four weeks ago.Last night,Both kittens were fine.They seemed healthy and the mother seemed attentive.Today,I could not find the calico kitten.The solid white one was on the bed in the spare room they are staying in.The mother was with it.I found the calico under the bed.It was missing it's head one leg and its heart was outside of it's body.She must have eaten it,as there are no other animals in the room with them.The mother is approx.5 years old and this was her first litter.I will take the other kitten out tonight,and start feeding it a nursing supplement.She seems to be fine with the kitten left, but, I don't think I should trust her now.Why would she do this?They both seemed healthy and happy.She was taking good care of both of them,I am puzzled about this,Please ,if you have any information that can help me to understand this,It will be greatly appreciated.Thank you.Dorinda

The only reasons I've ever heard of a cat killing its young were because it was sick or they couldn't feed it anymore. Since neither seem to apply here, I have no idea what would make her kill her baby.

If you still have the body, you can take it to a vet and they can run tests to see if it was sick. If it ended up catching something, you'll need to know so you can treat the other one.

Is the bed they were on a regular person bed? If so, then the kitten might've fallen off and gotten hurt or killed. She might've tried to eat the body to keep the nesting area clean and to prevent the smell from drawing predators.

Hi, dorindafrye!

I feel sorry for you that this happened! Yes, there could be a number of reasons it happened. Since you weren't there when it happened, it's possible that the kitten was sick or died in some way other than the mother killing it.

I remember when my female cat, who is now deceased, had her litter. One of the kittens was clearly deformed, dying and then died. My cat nudged the dead kitten towards me, presumably because she knew that I would know what to do with it. If I hadn't been there at the time, I'm not sure what she would have done with it.

By the way, hheath541 has provided you with an outstanding answer!

Thanks!

Ive heard a lot of reasons animals kill their babies...

One reason is stress. If the animal is stressed, they take minimal care of the babies and do strange things to the babies.

I've also heard calcium deficiency will cause them to neglect and kill babies.

She could be sick. Not with the common cold, but maybe a more serious illness.

And of course, the kitten may have had something wrong with it. But seening as how mama mutilated it, I doubt it.

Contrary to everyone's beliefs, not all animals are good moms. Some animals really do need to be spayed due to how they treat their babies.

It's a good thing you took the baby away. She would probably kill it.

I took care of some orphaned puppies over christmas. They didn't do so well on store bought formula so I had to make them some milk. They did very good on it. The vets were very pleased with what the milk did for them.

Here's a recipe you might be interested in. Its all natural.

Easy Homemade Kitten Milk Recipe (http://www.easy-homemade-recipes.com/kitten-milk.html)

Good luck

There is a lot of reasons she would kill her babies she could have been trying to move the kittens because she wanted them somewhere else she could have dropped it off te bed and it died then there is a second reason if you touched it she may of smelt your scent on it dragged it of the bed and killed it it is not usual for a cat to eat her kittens but some cats can get really aggressive with the kittens if they annoy the female and she may have been in a lot of stress after giving birth most cats will not eat there kittens they will just abandon them and not feed them if the kitten was sick then it could have died on the bed and the mom dragged it of to hide it not to be mean but if this is the first time your female has had kittens you should not leave her unsupervised until the kittens are old enough to walk and you should never leave kittens on a bed by themselves cause there is a chance if the kitten wasn't strong enough then it could have really hurt its self hope the other kitten is okay you can get kitten formula from any good pet store you were right to take the other kitten away from her please post and say if the kitten is okay hope this helped so sorry about what happened.