It is wise, particularly with rescues, or with purebreds who go to a household pet mother, to make sure she is negative for feline leukemia, first. If the kittens themselves are feral, or found abandoned out of doors, you may want to consult a vet about the possibilities that they are feline leukemia positive, and whether the owner of the substitute mother cat, wants to take that risk.
The first important factor to affect how you deal with these kittens, is how old they are. It is not the age that is important, but whether or not they had the opportunity to nurse from their mother, and receive in the first 48 hours, the colostrum that provides them with initial immunity to some of the cat world's bugs.
If your orphans are more than a couple of days old, which is very difficult to determine, you may be able to risk integrating them with an accepting female cat whose litter is young themselves. Generally speaking, these efforts are most successful if the adopting litter is under two weeks old. After that, the queen may not be as welcoming, and the difference in sizes may be a problem in crowding the box, or laying on the smaller babies.
If your orphans are obvious newborns, they are best segregated from the rest of any cat population in the environment, if you don't have a willing "wet nurse". They will have no immunity, and particularly in shelter/foster/rescue environments, they are easy prey to latent or shedding viruses.
Then comes the hard work. Anyone with children will remember the all night feedings. Hand raising orphan kittens isn't a lot different. You can forget sleeping for the first little while, until the kittens nurse enough to hold them over for three or four hours.
If you are in a position where you have kittens from time to time, it is a good idea to have a nursing kit on hand. There are a number of different ones that can be purchased via pet supply sites or stores. Two of the handiest ones, are the nursing syringe with nipples, or the angled nursing bottle, also with the "cat" shaped nipples, which are long and slender. The small nursing bottles supplied by clinics when you buy formula, are usually not suitable for small kittens, as the nipple is short and plump. The nursing nipples mimic a mother cat's, although some come without holes in the end, and you may have to make an appropriate sized opening yourself.
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