In ,
(Nord Stjern) wrote:

| I trapped a stray this morning, who is still lactating. [...] The cat
| is currently at the vet, they agreed to spay her right away so that she
| could be re-released asap. Anyone willing to make a prediction about
| how long the kittens can survive without her, depending on their age?

Under 2 weeks of age, not much more than a day. Up to 4 weeks, longer
(say, up to 3 days). If they've started to wean, maybe longer.

No one seems able to say for sure. The vets we've asked have been more
conservative in their estimates. But as anecdotal evidence, I offer the
following:

There was a case reported in these newsgroups of a kitten about 2 weeks
old who fell through a crack behind a wall in a house - it took quite a
while to figure out that the faint mewling was coming from behind the
wall! The kitten wasn't rescued for three days.

My cat Phoenix was about 2 weeks old when we trapped his mother (the
last intact female of her feral colony) in March 2002. For various
reasons, we couldn't get her back to the colony for over three days. He
survived, but admittedly we don't know if he had littermates.

| What's the minimum time (under these circumstances) that I should keep
| her in recovery? Until she is fully awake, or 24 hours?

I'd say a minimum of 24 hours. Not only does she need to work off the
drugs, the incision needs to start bonding properly.

Also anecdotally, our feral specialist vets can estimate the age of the
kittens based on the "condition" of the mother - nothing more accurate
than "under two weeks" or "2-4 weeks", but useful information anyway.
Do you have vets with such experience in your area? It's a brutal
tradeoff - health of mother versus survival of kittens - but the longer
you can afford to keep her for recovery, the better for all of them.