I have been won­der­ing for some days now if Tin­ker is preg­nant again, given that she is still nurs­ing 4 kit­tens. Here is the answer…

Q: Can a cat get preg­nant while still nurs­ing kittens?

A: Yes. Lac­ta­tion (pro­duc­tion of milk)
does not sup­press the heat cycle, and cats that are actively nurs­ing
kit­tens can go into heat as soon as two weeks after giv­ing birth.

Some aspects of a cat’s repro­duc­tive capa­bil­i­ties are truly
remark­able. Did you know that even being preg­nant doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily
sup­press the heat cycle in cats! In fact, 10 per­cent of female cats go
into heat between the third and sixth week of preg­nancy. Although these
cycles are rarely fer­tile, it actu­ally is pos­si­ble for a cat to be
car­ry­ing fetuses of dif­fer­ent ages, result­ing from sep­a­rate mat­ings in
dif­fer­ent heat cycles! The sci­en­tific term for this is “superfetation.”

Also, a female cat in heat can mate with sev­eral males, and it is
pos­si­ble for kit­tens in a lit­ter to have dif­fer­ent fathers. The
tech­ni­cal term for this is “super­fe­cun­da­tion.” Cats long have been
rec­og­nized for their fer­til­ity. Bastet, the Egypt­ian god­dess of
fer­til­ity, is depicted as a cat in art­work, and the ancient Egyp­tians
wor­shipped cats as a sym­bol of fer­til­ity. When it comes to mak­ing
babies, cats are one of the most pro­lific domes­tic pets out there.

Who knew? Thank good­ness this can­not hap­pen to women!! Guess we will have another lit­ter soon!! And now you know.