Liz,
When I was a kid we had several litters of kittens. As I recall, the vet
reccommended giving them away at around 8 weeks. They weren't necessarily
weaned completely. Cats seemed to experience less "separation anxiety "than
puppies I've gotten at 8 weeks. The mother cat was pretty active in weaning
some of the kittens we kept. She would take them out and teach them to hunt,
shorten their nursing times, and eventually refuse to nurse them. She also
seemed to tailor her weaning to the specific kitty. We kept one of her
kittens that seemed retarded. This particular kitten never caught on to
hunting or the other normal learning activities of the other kittens, but the
mother cat let him nurse until he was about 18+ months old! He was bigger
than she was, but he still seemed to need her. BTW, these cats worked as
mousers in my Dad's greenhouses. They had great life. I had forgotten how
facsinated I was about these kittens. Maybe they were the reason natural
weaning seemed right to me.

Marie