Dual pregnancy?

Yes, really: a female cat can carry more than one litter. It doesn’t happen in humans, but it sure happens in cats. Here’s the sequence: in rare cases, a female cat goes into heat even though she is already pregnant. (It’s called superfetation.) When she gives birth to the first litter, sometimes the second litter is born at the same time—smaller and less developed, naturally, and often incapable of surviving.

But the second litter may remain inside and be born after the usual amount of time, thus producing both a teat shortage and a milk shortage, since the first litter of kittens is still nursing. Luckily, sometimes another mother cat will “loan out” her teats and milk to the superfluous babies.

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