Cat shares newborn kittens with cat who lost own baby. See ‘beautiful’ video on TikTok

A momma cat helped another cat mourn the loss of her baby in Ohio and people are calling the video “heartbreakingly beautiful.”

“It all started during COVID,” Aysha Clever, the cat’s owner who lives in Columbus, told McClatchy News in a phone interview April 5. “My other cat Moose got my cat Cheeto pregnant and then got my roommate’s cat Mellow pregnant.”

Although the babies weren’t planned, they are a “blessing,” Clever said.

“During the pandemic it was super hard to make an appointment with the vet to get the cats fixed,” Clever said.

For Cheeto, her labor was difficult, Clever said.

“Cheeto had a really, really rough labor,” Clever said. “She had a kitten and then went into interruptive labor and had two other kittens 26 hours later. The third kitten didn’t make it.”

The March 25 TikTok that’s garnered more than 7.8 million views as of April 5 shows Clever and her roommate burying Cheeto’s third baby before the camera pans over and shows Cheeto staring out the screen door.

Clever can be heard saying “sorry mama,” in the TikTok captioned, “Animals are truly amazing.”

“We almost lost Cheeto because she was retaining her placenta,” Clever said.

That’s when Clever got worried something similar might happen when Mellow was in labor.

“Mellow went into labor two weeks later and her labor was a lot easier, but Cheeto was very interested from the beginning. During Mellow’s labor, Cheeto was with her, helping her, assisting her,” she said.

Mellow had her kittens in Clever’s bedroom closet, and she had no worry about Cheeto with her kittens.

“Mellow would eat, take naps, and Cheeto would be with them,” she said. “Eventually they went and put the babies all together.”

Soon after their labor, Mellow and Cheeto were spayed, Clever said.

And Clever wants folks to know, the kittens were fixed as soon as they could be and weren’t separated from their moms.

“We got super attached,” she said. “We bonded with the entire family and we just knew we couldn’t separate them.

TikTok users rushed to the comments to share their thoughts on the blended family.

“As soon as they gathered their kittens I gathered my tears,” one person said.

“Awwww! I’m crying for Cheeto and her loss, but Mellow is amazing for what she did for her,” another person said.

As for how Clever feels about the love she’s gotten on TikTok about the experience?

She couldn’t be happier, she said.

“I love my fur babies and hearing that other people love them too and the story means something to them, it makes me feel really good. It was such an intense time so to have someone else reciprocate that feeling, it’s very rewarding,” she said.

Clever said the family remains tight-knit and they “cuddle all the time.”

“They’re all doing so well,” she said. “It’s literally like a little family.”

This story was originally published April 5, 2024 at 2:13 PM with the headline "Cat shares newborn kittens with cat who lost own baby. See ‘beautiful’ video on TikTok."