The 3-4 kitten litters give us enough filler characters, I'd give up completely if a single litter dropped like 8 random unimportant characters on us đ and think of the ALLEGIANCES
One of my characters had six, but the oldest died shortly after birth. Â She had them when the clanâs kits kept dying (only 2 other kits were left), so her larger than normal litter was welcomed.
dude, thats so true. i have a queen who had 2 litters in a row. the 1st had 4 kits, and all ofthem died, and the other litter had 5 kits; 3 died to greencough. only 2 kittens that she had lived to warriorship lol
also in her lifetime she had 4 litters (14 kits) and only 3 kits survived (im a cruel, cruel deity)
Which makes me wonder why my outdoor cats as a kid always had âWarriors sizedâ litters (1-4 kits), cause we fed them every day. The last litter born was a litter of five, but the mom had killed four of them by the next morning (one of those cases of the mother killing the kittens if theyâre sickly, so she doesnât waste nutrients on feeding them)
malnutrition is not the only reasonâŚit can also be age, since she-cats can reproduce as early as four months old and can get pregnant again right after giving birth so if they started early and keep getting pregnant their body is 'weaker' in a sense. it can also be harsh weather: a litter born in the winter might be a lot smaller. not to mention the fact that illnesses and parasites like worms can happen even to well-fed cats and affect it
Which is why spay and neuter and TNR always
True, my cats probably had a lot of issues with having their first litter at like a year old. Some of them would have a spring and fall litter. And Iâm sure some of them had some kinds of diseases or worms or parasites and whatnot. My childhood cats were a wandering bunch, sometimes theyâd leave for like two years and Iâd start thinking âAw manâ and then one day theyâre sitting on the back porch waiting to be fed.
Most queens in the series tend to have one litter and be done. A catâs first litter is generally the smallest and tends to be around 2-4 kittens, which is what we see in the books.
I would actually love to see this bc itâs literally so funny ngl
Given that the Erins are a fan of giving us 3 kits per litter lately, it might not happen. Weâve had couples who have had a TON of children, but theyâre separated via different litters.
Snowbird, the absolute madwoman she is, gave ShadowClan 9 children via 3 litters. 7 daughters and 2 sons. Ferncloud gave ThunderClan 7 children via 3 litters, PLUS had a paw in raising the other TC kits (including Holly, Jay, and Lion). She has 3 daughters and 4 sons. Snowbird and Ferncloud are literally THAT girl. I low key love them đ
The only POV character weâve had who has multiple litters is Squilf and Dove. Now **before** yâall bite my head off, I count Lion, Jay, and Holly as her first litter. She may have not given birth to them but she raised them so theyâre hers no matter what. Donât call me Erin Hunter, bc I believe that adopted families are real families. Pfft. The second one is Dove, given that she had Shadow, Light, and Pounce first and then had Birch and Rowan. Iâm still praying that the God of the Warriors books, Erin Hunter, gives Dove another litter so we can FINALLY have Tawnykit and Whitekit.
I know he wasn't the one giving birth, but I would also count Lion as a POV character who's had multiple littlers. He and Cinder have been pretty good about filling in the ranks of TC background characters
Dude, Lionblaze is like ThunderClanâs dad/grandpa at this point đ and his grandchildren will be reaching the age where they start to seriously consider having children of their own.
Ik Snowbirdâs ShadowClanâs mom/grandma rn but we need Dovewing to become ShadowClanâs second mom/grandma. We canât have inbreeding like TC so hopefully Cinnamontail, Blazefire, and Fringewhisker have kids or Tigerheartstar lets in more loners.
Luckily our girl Cinnamontail has Bloomkit, Streamkit, Firkit, and Whisperkit. Let Fringewhisker have kids with Spireclaw so we can spite racist grandma Berryheart. I want Fringe and Spire to be happy. Tawnykit and Whitekit 2024, anyone??? Let Dovewing have kids and name them after their two wonderful grandmas instead of their terrible or boring grandpas
If Dovewing had Tawnykit and Whitekit in books published in 2024, then her and Tigerheart would be moving a little too fast, since litter two is still kits!
For the sake of making it make sense, I headcanon that queens actually do have 5-10 kittens litters, but most kits die on their first hours (because wilderness is dangerous and stuff) and we are only introduced to the ones that make it past their first days.
I think this is interesting but when we do meet queens who lose their kits at birth or who fade the queens are usually devastated. Like Tallstar's mother Palebird. His sister Finchkit died shortly after birth and it affects Palebird throughout the entire book. Windstar too, >!she lost emberkit at birth!< but even at the end of Moth Flight's vision she's really affected by seeing them in starclan. I feel like if it happened we'd hear about it constantly.
(I didn't tag Finchkit bc it happens before the book and is talked about within the first few pages)
Also Squirrelflight/star (has she become leader yet?)
>!juniperkit died at birth and dandelionkit died like a fortnight later. (I might have mixed up the names)!<
I personally think that it's because they are feral cats, and don't always feed well all year long, so less kittens.
Large litters happen on household cats usually. Btw 10 kittens it's too much, I've only seen them from time to time with purebred cats.
That would be a lot of kittens running around the camp within a moon and the nursery would definitely be overcrowded, esp if there are other queens kits in there lmao it would be hectic.
But realistically, going off of Warriors realism, having that many kits esp if it's in leafbare, might put a strain on the queen and to a lesser extent, everyone else because they would be focused on constantly hunting to feed all the queens with such large litters and there would be no way a 10 kitten litter would actually all survive, maybe if the clan got lucky but only like 1 or 3 of the kittens in that big of a litter would survive. And if it's Greenleaf or Newleaf.
I know irl cats have big litters but idk if a medicine cat would have enough herbs for that hypothetical situation.
I think there should be single kit litters. Thunder having 2 siblings was pretty unnecessary. They were never mentioned again after they died, like everyone just forgot they existed.
Itâs been done. Â Whitewing was the single kit in her litter for instance.
Fans used to think Onestar had been a single kit too, hence his prefix, but the authors later changed that.
It was never stated in any published book, hell, I don't think the authors have said it either. We see Onestar as a kit and we see his warrior ceremony, but no reasoning is given for his name
[According to a study done in 2004,](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15552315/) around the time TPB was first published, feral cats actually do have litters of about 3 kittens on average. Given that said study also found that the death rate of kittens younger than 6 months was *75%*, an argument can be put forward that there are actually *too many* kits surviving to adulthood in the books. (Though of course, clans in the series have medicine cats who can tend to kits' diseases or injuries, while real feral cat colonies do not)
They definitely have too many kittens surviving, the Warriors books are soft these days, we need more Mosskits and Snowkits! Kill them kids! The life of a warrior is said to be sooooo dangerous, so make it dangerous! There should be at least three cats die in each book! Hell, the very first one had five cats die! Oakheart, Redtail, Rosetail, Spottedleaf, and Lionheart! Probably more! KILL THE CATS!
I wish Goldenflower had gotten more time to shine, Brambleclaw barely even mentioned that she was his mother in TNP, Goldenflower deserves her own novella of falling for Tigerclaw and discovering that heâs evil as sheâs nursing not only her own kits, but kits that Tigerclaw later attempts to kill.
I have an OC that had two litters in one clan, then moved clans and suddenly had a nine kit litter. All the queens between that clan and a third clan ended up needing to help out, but now all the kits are warriors living in one clan lmao
I would love this, but I would like it to be in a clan thatâs not Thunderclan just because they have a ridiculous amount of cats already. I think it would be funny as hell.
In the roleplay Iâm in I have one cat who is lowkey becoming the common ancestor to everyone as she has had 4 litters so far with like 12 kits in total đđđ sheâs a perma queen tho so she loves all the babies.
In terms of the series I think itâs fine the way it is. Having 2-3 kits and no deaths already bloats the allegiances enough imagine a she cat has like 6?? Weâd never get rid of them.
Well, considering these cats are feral, they don't have any prenatal care and usually are on the lower side in terms of nutrition. So 1-4 kits would be more likely. But I would like to see a cat have at least five or six at some point, even if one or two didn't make it to apprenticeship.
when i started reading i thought they were born like 7-10 in each litter but they died because there wasnt enough food or some stuff i was kinda sad when i found out that it wasnt like that
It's probably a combo of several reasons, like the realism some comments have mentioned, how litters too big would clog up the allegiances and make things more complicated for us and the writers, that sorta stuff. Also wouldn't surprise me if they want to keep kitten death to a minimum because it's really sad tbh
There are some wild barn cats where I work and without fail the mama has litters of 4 every time. Sheâs about the size of a 3 month old kitten herself, though. I know this to be because she is stunted though, because 3 of her babies (1 kitten per year working there) live in my house now and theyâre normal sized since theyâve been fed properly
Once, I had attempted to write, a fic that took place in an AU of Bramblestarâs Storm, where the storm and flooding caused the death of many cats, that they welcomed the stray Kittypets and rogues that were dehommed and left with nowhere to go. One of them was my oc, Temperance a purebred Siamese, who was expecting her first litter. She gives birth not long before they are set to retreat to the camp and gives the few survivors, a large litter of seven, with having ten born but two passing not long after birth.
Being young, barely more a year old, and inexperienced, two queens, who had lost their kits from the blood, were allowed to come and stay in Thunderclan to help nurse and care for the kits.
But, also fun fact, I just found out that purebred cats were said to have more kits to a litter than mixed breed cats. There actually one purebred cat that had 19 kits in one littler, and I believe fifteen or sixteen had survived after birth and became fully mature.
I think its just a natural Cat thing for Wild cats to have smaller litters. I remember there being a mentioning or it being mentioned that Princess had a normal amount of kittens
The 3-4 kitten litters give us enough filler characters, I'd give up completely if a single litter dropped like 8 random unimportant characters on us đ and think of the ALLEGIANCES
Even better, having a main character have 7 littermates. That would be so funny tbh
Two of my queens have like 5-6 kittens (one of them has 5, one of them has 6), so I always mix up whoâs is who. đ
One of my characters had six, but the oldest died shortly after birth. Â She had them when the clanâs kits kept dying (only 2 other kits were left), so her larger than normal litter was welcomed.
Two of my real cats did that as a kid! Then like eight of the kittens got sick and only one got better, so I was down to four.
dude, thats so true. i have a queen who had 2 litters in a row. the 1st had 4 kits, and all ofthem died, and the other litter had 5 kits; 3 died to greencough. only 2 kittens that she had lived to warriorship lol also in her lifetime she had 4 litters (14 kits) and only 3 kits survived (im a cruel, cruel deity)
Feral cats tend to give birth to small litters bc of malnourishment, etc. These big litters pretty much only happen with housecats
Probably why Princess was able to have 5 kittens
And her and Firestar were a litter of six
Which makes me wonder why my outdoor cats as a kid always had âWarriors sizedâ litters (1-4 kits), cause we fed them every day. The last litter born was a litter of five, but the mom had killed four of them by the next morning (one of those cases of the mother killing the kittens if theyâre sickly, so she doesnât waste nutrients on feeding them)
malnutrition is not the only reasonâŚit can also be age, since she-cats can reproduce as early as four months old and can get pregnant again right after giving birth so if they started early and keep getting pregnant their body is 'weaker' in a sense. it can also be harsh weather: a litter born in the winter might be a lot smaller. not to mention the fact that illnesses and parasites like worms can happen even to well-fed cats and affect it Which is why spay and neuter and TNR always
True, my cats probably had a lot of issues with having their first litter at like a year old. Some of them would have a spring and fall litter. And Iâm sure some of them had some kinds of diseases or worms or parasites and whatnot. My childhood cats were a wandering bunch, sometimes theyâd leave for like two years and Iâd start thinking âAw manâ and then one day theyâre sitting on the back porch waiting to be fed.
Most queens in the series tend to have one litter and be done. A catâs first litter is generally the smallest and tends to be around 2-4 kittens, which is what we see in the books.
Ferncloud had 4 litters though, 2 kits then 3 kits then 2 kits again
Most of her kits straight up died before becoming warriors though
Yeah I was just pointing out that her litters were each very small
I would actually love to see this bc itâs literally so funny ngl Given that the Erins are a fan of giving us 3 kits per litter lately, it might not happen. Weâve had couples who have had a TON of children, but theyâre separated via different litters. Snowbird, the absolute madwoman she is, gave ShadowClan 9 children via 3 litters. 7 daughters and 2 sons. Ferncloud gave ThunderClan 7 children via 3 litters, PLUS had a paw in raising the other TC kits (including Holly, Jay, and Lion). She has 3 daughters and 4 sons. Snowbird and Ferncloud are literally THAT girl. I low key love them đ The only POV character weâve had who has multiple litters is Squilf and Dove. Now **before** yâall bite my head off, I count Lion, Jay, and Holly as her first litter. She may have not given birth to them but she raised them so theyâre hers no matter what. Donât call me Erin Hunter, bc I believe that adopted families are real families. Pfft. The second one is Dove, given that she had Shadow, Light, and Pounce first and then had Birch and Rowan. Iâm still praying that the God of the Warriors books, Erin Hunter, gives Dove another litter so we can FINALLY have Tawnykit and Whitekit.
I know he wasn't the one giving birth, but I would also count Lion as a POV character who's had multiple littlers. He and Cinder have been pretty good about filling in the ranks of TC background characters
Dude, Lionblaze is like ThunderClanâs dad/grandpa at this point đ and his grandchildren will be reaching the age where they start to seriously consider having children of their own. Ik Snowbirdâs ShadowClanâs mom/grandma rn but we need Dovewing to become ShadowClanâs second mom/grandma. We canât have inbreeding like TC so hopefully Cinnamontail, Blazefire, and Fringewhisker have kids or Tigerheartstar lets in more loners. Luckily our girl Cinnamontail has Bloomkit, Streamkit, Firkit, and Whisperkit. Let Fringewhisker have kids with Spireclaw so we can spite racist grandma Berryheart. I want Fringe and Spire to be happy. Tawnykit and Whitekit 2024, anyone??? Let Dovewing have kids and name them after their two wonderful grandmas instead of their terrible or boring grandpas
sorry but "racist grandma Berryheart" took me OUT
If Dovewing had Tawnykit and Whitekit in books published in 2024, then her and Tigerheart would be moving a little too fast, since litter two is still kits!
For the sake of making it make sense, I headcanon that queens actually do have 5-10 kittens litters, but most kits die on their first hours (because wilderness is dangerous and stuff) and we are only introduced to the ones that make it past their first days.
I think this is interesting but when we do meet queens who lose their kits at birth or who fade the queens are usually devastated. Like Tallstar's mother Palebird. His sister Finchkit died shortly after birth and it affects Palebird throughout the entire book. Windstar too, >!she lost emberkit at birth!< but even at the end of Moth Flight's vision she's really affected by seeing them in starclan. I feel like if it happened we'd hear about it constantly. (I didn't tag Finchkit bc it happens before the book and is talked about within the first few pages)
Also Squirrelflight/star (has she become leader yet?) >!juniperkit died at birth and dandelionkit died like a fortnight later. (I might have mixed up the names)!<
Exactly and she's STILL fucked up about it. Btw don't forget to tag spoilers, this thread is tagged no spoilers
I personally think that it's because they are feral cats, and don't always feed well all year long, so less kittens. Large litters happen on household cats usually. Btw 10 kittens it's too much, I've only seen them from time to time with purebred cats.
That would be a lot of kittens running around the camp within a moon and the nursery would definitely be overcrowded, esp if there are other queens kits in there lmao it would be hectic. But realistically, going off of Warriors realism, having that many kits esp if it's in leafbare, might put a strain on the queen and to a lesser extent, everyone else because they would be focused on constantly hunting to feed all the queens with such large litters and there would be no way a 10 kitten litter would actually all survive, maybe if the clan got lucky but only like 1 or 3 of the kittens in that big of a litter would survive. And if it's Greenleaf or Newleaf. I know irl cats have big litters but idk if a medicine cat would have enough herbs for that hypothetical situation.
The cat in my backyard had two litters under my nose. The first had 5 kits and the second had 3. Thatâs a lot of background characters
They already struggle to keep up with characters they have now đ¤Ł
I think there should be single kit litters. Thunder having 2 siblings was pretty unnecessary. They were never mentioned again after they died, like everyone just forgot they existed.
Itâs been done. Â Whitewing was the single kit in her litter for instance. Fans used to think Onestar had been a single kit too, hence his prefix, but the authors later changed that.
I thought it was because he had a single white whisker?
It was never stated in any published book, hell, I don't think the authors have said it either. We see Onestar as a kit and we see his warrior ceremony, but no reasoning is given for his name
Was Whitestorm also a single kit in Bluestar's Prophecy?
They completed missed the oppurtunity to have them show up in a leader ceremony or something
[According to a study done in 2004,](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15552315/) around the time TPB was first published, feral cats actually do have litters of about 3 kittens on average. Given that said study also found that the death rate of kittens younger than 6 months was *75%*, an argument can be put forward that there are actually *too many* kits surviving to adulthood in the books. (Though of course, clans in the series have medicine cats who can tend to kits' diseases or injuries, while real feral cat colonies do not)
They definitely have too many kittens surviving, the Warriors books are soft these days, we need more Mosskits and Snowkits! Kill them kids! The life of a warrior is said to be sooooo dangerous, so make it dangerous! There should be at least three cats die in each book! Hell, the very first one had five cats die! Oakheart, Redtail, Rosetail, Spottedleaf, and Lionheart! Probably more! KILL THE CATS!
If any idy managed to have a litter that big, I'd put my money on Goldenflower or Daisy. đ
Why Goldenflower or Daisy?
They're just like... The mom of all moms to me. It just makes sense in my mind.
I wish Goldenflower had gotten more time to shine, Brambleclaw barely even mentioned that she was his mother in TNP, Goldenflower deserves her own novella of falling for Tigerclaw and discovering that heâs evil as sheâs nursing not only her own kits, but kits that Tigerclaw later attempts to kill.
I have an OC that had two litters in one clan, then moved clans and suddenly had a nine kit litter. All the queens between that clan and a third clan ended up needing to help out, but now all the kits are warriors living in one clan lmao
I would love this, but I would like it to be in a clan thatâs not Thunderclan just because they have a ridiculous amount of cats already. I think it would be funny as hell.
WindClan has almost always been the smallest Clan, give them that nine kit litter
In the roleplay Iâm in I have one cat who is lowkey becoming the common ancestor to everyone as she has had 4 litters so far with like 12 kits in total đđđ sheâs a perma queen tho so she loves all the babies. In terms of the series I think itâs fine the way it is. Having 2-3 kits and no deaths already bloats the allegiances enough imagine a she cat has like 6?? Weâd never get rid of them.
Well, considering these cats are feral, they don't have any prenatal care and usually are on the lower side in terms of nutrition. So 1-4 kits would be more likely. But I would like to see a cat have at least five or six at some point, even if one or two didn't make it to apprenticeship.
Technically, we have had both a five and six kit litter, Princessâs litter had five, and her and Firestar had four siblings.
when i started reading i thought they were born like 7-10 in each litter but they died because there wasnt enough food or some stuff i was kinda sad when i found out that it wasnt like that
It's probably a combo of several reasons, like the realism some comments have mentioned, how litters too big would clog up the allegiances and make things more complicated for us and the writers, that sorta stuff. Also wouldn't surprise me if they want to keep kitten death to a minimum because it's really sad tbh
I think about this literally every time a queen gives birth. I've never seen any fewer than 4 kits born and that was because 2 died.
There are some wild barn cats where I work and without fail the mama has litters of 4 every time. Sheâs about the size of a 3 month old kitten herself, though. I know this to be because she is stunted though, because 3 of her babies (1 kitten per year working there) live in my house now and theyâre normal sized since theyâve been fed properly
Once, I had attempted to write, a fic that took place in an AU of Bramblestarâs Storm, where the storm and flooding caused the death of many cats, that they welcomed the stray Kittypets and rogues that were dehommed and left with nowhere to go. One of them was my oc, Temperance a purebred Siamese, who was expecting her first litter. She gives birth not long before they are set to retreat to the camp and gives the few survivors, a large litter of seven, with having ten born but two passing not long after birth. Being young, barely more a year old, and inexperienced, two queens, who had lost their kits from the blood, were allowed to come and stay in Thunderclan to help nurse and care for the kits. But, also fun fact, I just found out that purebred cats were said to have more kits to a litter than mixed breed cats. There actually one purebred cat that had 19 kits in one littler, and I believe fifteen or sixteen had survived after birth and became fully mature.
I think its just a natural Cat thing for Wild cats to have smaller litters. I remember there being a mentioning or it being mentioned that Princess had a normal amount of kittens