Sept 2020: "Steve, can you take care of 5 kittens and a feral, wild mom cat? We have all of them in a cage."
I thought, "Sure, because the mom will nurse the babies and I need to feed just the mom cat."
Oh boy. When I dropped by the animal clinic and said, "I'm taking care of five kittens, with the mom, and we need the vaccines". The vet tech sighed. "FIVE kittens? Oh, my." I wondered why.
The vet tech said, "New mom cats often select which kittens will survive. She might have milk for only two or three kittens."
Within in two weeks, three had died. Why?
a) I didn't listen carefully or ask, "What can I do to keep a kitten alive if he gets rejected by the mom?"
b) "What are the signs that the kitten is rejected? Then what do I feed the kitten?"
Oh well. I learned the hard way and there are three graves in my backyard. :-(
Teenagers will be spared these issues because they won't have the mom cat -- the project will be just about kittens who have been separated from the mom. Ideally the mom would be with the kittens, and that's a bigger project, since there is more to do. Generally, the Teen project covers kittens who have been weaned (they no longer need mother's milk) and they are healthy. This happens usually between 8 and 10 weeks, so that typical project with a kitten who is 8 weeks old will end when the kitten is 16 weeks old and ready to return to the clinic.