Will mother get on with her kitten?

PCros

Hey guys, we currently have 3 kittens going on 5 weeks now and we are planning to keep the only male and give away the two females.

Is it true that mammy cats will accept living with the male as he will grow up stronger and bigger and won't be pushed around, I read that sometimes they can get annoyed with females when they notice that they are staying fulltime.

The mammy who is only 7 months herself is very friendly.

Any experience with this would great!?

Blueprint

I've got a mother and two of her kittens, a male and a female - the youngsters are now two and a bit and they all get on just fine. On the face of it, you would think that the two females actually get on better than either with the male, as they sleep together etc, but a lot of that has to do with the fact that they both like to do the same thing at the same time and neither will back down! The male is a little bit more of the odd man out, but gets on fine with both his mother and sister.

There has been a little jealousy between the two females at times, but nothing major.

The Sweeper

They should be fine whichever ones you keep - but are you planning to get the mother cat desexed now? And you'll need to get the male desexed as well...

Keep hold of all kittens up to 10-12 weeks if you can, because they get more balanced start in life if they're with their mom and siblings for that long, but desex the mother when the kittens are around 7-8 weeks old. Start putting more wet food out for the mother before then, and the kittens will start eating it too and should be well weaned by 7-8 weeks.

If you don't have the male neutered, he will roam and fight - and if you don't have his mother neutered, she'll come on heat and bring around every intact tom cat in your area and they'll rip your male kitten to pieces, whether or not he's been neutered.

The mom can and will come on heat again very quickly after the existing litter, and if she's an outdoor cat with open access to the world then she'll end up pregnant again in no time.

PinkTulips

my mother cat has three of her kittens living with her, 2 males and a female.

the two males are twice her size and she bullies them terribly , they never do a thing to her but she'll swipe at them if they walk past... the older one jumped from halfway up the stairs onto the landing through the bannisters today to avoid walking past her! but she doesn't ever do too much to them, a bit of a hiss or a swipe but for the most part she ignores them.

the female is only 12 weeks old, we couldn't find a home for her and fell in love. so far they're ok, when momma cat was spayed the little girl kitten snuggled up to her for days to cheer her up and really minded her but i've noticed momma cat swiping at her the last couple of days so i think things may go downhill from here, she certainly wasn't swiping at the boys this young i'm fervently hoping once little one is spayed too that they'll just set up shop in other parts of the house and pointedly ignore each other but it's possible we may have warfare!

the three kittens get along fine regardless of gender despite being from differant litters

PCros

Yep the both of them will be desexed as you mentioned and they are indoor cats as we live in an apartment. We have been feeding them cold meat finely chopped and they like it sometimes and not so much other times, but they wont touch the kitten food when mammy is eating.

Hmm I suppose its the luck of the draw if they get on or not regardless if its a male or a female.

Blueprint its funny you mention that about the boy being the odd one out, at the moment the two females are boisterous little things and the male just sits there and observes and sometimes go in for a sneaky pounce!

The Sweeper

Keep feeding them the meat - you say cold meat - try raw meat. You'll be astonished at how your kittens go at finely diced raw beef or raw lamb. When they get bigger, you can move up to 1cm cubes and bigger pieces. Buy the cheap cuts and try beef heart and lamb's heart as well. You have to make sure it's as fresh as possible, and it's better from fresh than from frozen (freezing it affects the level of the amino acid, taurine, in the meat). It actually works out cheaper than the same volume of commercial tinned pet food, and they look great on it. The more variety you offer, the more they'll eat eventually, just keep persisting with it.

Also: pics?

PCros

Thanks for the tips MAJD. Will try that out today.
Heres the pics as requested.

First one is with mammy...


Sleeping....


Nice yawn!

Blueprint

That black and white one looks a lot like my guy at that age! Is that the boy or one of the girls?

Here's my guy age around six weeks with one of his two brothers:



He's a hell of a lot bigger than that now!

PCros

Blueprint wrote: »

That black and white one looks a lot like my guy at that age! Is that the boy or one of the girls?

Thats actually a girl and a whinger too hehe. The boy is the grey one at the back in the last picture and the other girl is yawning.

Blueprint

PCros wrote: »

Thats actually a girl and a whinger too hehe. The boy is the grey one at the back in the last picture and the other girl is yawning.

My guy was the biggest whinger when he was a kitten, he was the one his mother always came running for, because he was so loud!

The Sweeper

Aw cute!

Kittens are just worth their weight in gold.

PS: something I didn't say: only ever feed your pets human grade meat.

PCros

Spot on my friend.....just gave them chopped up steak and they ate it all up in no time!:D

saviourgirl

Those kittens are to die for!:D

useful_contacts

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW