Fisher Cat Litter Size
The average litter size is 3 to 5 kittens but a young mother or a first time mother can expect to have around 2 to 3 kittens.
Fisher cat litter size. That s a big range. The average number of young in a litter is 3. The blind and helpless newborns are dependent on the mother for nearly four months the male does not help rear the young. The sexes have similar physical features but they are sexually dimorphic in size with the male being much larger than the female.
Young fishers are born blind and almost completely naked. Average litter size is 2 3 young and kits are born partially furred with closed eyes and ears essentially helpless at birth. So what kinds of factors can affect the size of a litter. What is a fisher cat.
The fisher cat is a north american marten a medium sized mustelid the fisher is agile in trees and has a slender body that allows it to pursue prey into hollow trees or burrows in the ground. Feline litter sizes can be influenced by multiple factors including the type of cat the age of the mother the health of the mother and the genetic history of both the mother and father. Factors that influence litter size. Males are 90 to 120 cm 35 47 in in length and weigh 3 5 to 6 0 kg 8 13 lb.
1 4 kits born mid march to late april. A litter of 1 to 4 kits is born in a maternity den in a hollow tree. Their eyes open after about 53 days. Most cats or queens unspayed female cats have a litter of three to five kittens but feline litters can vary in size from one to more than 10.
Weaning occurs within 8 10 weeks and dispersal of young may occur by their fifth month as interfamilial aggression begins by the onset of autumn. Litter sizes generally range from one to four but can be as high as five or six in rare cases. A lot of people have never heard of a fisher cat. Protected and raised in a hollow tree by their mother.
Young fishers begin to capture their own prey at four months of age and disperse by the time they are five months old. The kits are dependent on their mother until the fall and usually disperse to find their own territories at 10 12 months old. Young fishers are born blind and almost completely naked. To reduce litter waste we turned 14 by 11 by 3 inch storage containers into makeshift litter pans and filled each one with 2 inches of cat litter.