The reproduction and cubs

Tigers are solitary animals, so the reproduction is not that easy for them and their big territories make it even more difficult.
Tigers copulate the whole year, but they have a peak of fertility at October - November and March - May.
The mating ritual of tigers differs a lot from that of humans: when the female is in heat, she leaves tracks of smell and other characteristics behind at the borders of her territory. She also makes sounds, similar to songbirds (The sounds of the males are louder and shorter and from deeper into the throat). When males hear this, they will enter the females territory.
When this technique doesn't work, she leaves her territory behind and goes to search for a partner herself.

When the male and female tiger have found each other, they meet each other more times a day to copulate. They use the night to go on hunt and to find food. When a second male approaches, the males will try to chase each other away and they may fight possibly, after which the strongest may stay. Tigers are never homosexual (e.g. antelopes sometimes are).

When the female is no longer on heat, they both go back to their own territory. The first 2,5 weeks is the pregnancy not visible. Only the last 10 days you can see her thick belly. After 103 days, 2 to 3 cubs are born (averaging 2,9 cubs for orange and 2,75 cubs for white tigers). They are born in well hidden places like in caves and abandoned buildings. The cubs are born at intervals of 10 to 20 minutes, so after an hour the delivery is over. The mother commonly eats the amniotic sac, the placenta and the umbilical cord to earn some more energy. The next day she goes hunting again.

When the female gives birth for a first time, she may ignore the cubs completely. After the second litter she has already more experience and does it better. From the third litter she is a perfect mother. The females can only get in heat again after 18 till 20 months after the delivery. This can be longer when they have stress.

Then the cubs get their education: after 9 till 30 minutes they roar for the first time. First the cubs drink only milk and after 40 days the cubs get their first piece of meat, but they still drink much milk. After 90 till 100 days they only live on meat. They need then about 1 kilogram a day of it.

As long as the mother has cubs, she is incredibly unpredictable and dangerous, she will attack and if necessary kill without fear any creature that comes in the neighbourhood of her nest.