Hot Forum Topic: Mother Cat Hates Kittens
Lindsayanng goes on to say, So now the kittens are EXACTLY one year old. Chili has been through A LOT. In a year she gave birth, got a broken pelvic bone, and was diagnosed with BARTONELLA. She is now completely cured and healed. The pelvic issue was healed, and then months later we completed the 21 days of Zithromax she was acting like a kitten again (she is now 2 1/2 years old)
But recently, within the past 2 weeks, she started getting REALLY angry at her kittens. JUST her kittens and our puppy, but NOT at Tweek, our first cat. The two kittens that we kept just have to walk by chili to get her to growl and just brush up against her to get swatted at.
I am just curious if anyone has had this happen with kittens who grew up with their mothers. Is it a normal thing that just passes once they realize they are stuck together?
Franny's Thoughts:
Over the 50 years I've had cats I have experienced several occasions where a female cat would suddenly turn on an adolescent male cat she had previously "mothered." Our Arthur, who was spayed early on and never gave birth, exhibited this tendency both times she lived with male kittens. She lavished love and care on them when they were younger, but just about the time they reached puberty, she suddenly turned on them and would attack them viciously at random times. The first time it happened (with our Whiskers, over 30 years ago), I asked the vet what was going on with her. He said it was a natural tendency with female cats to let the youngsters know it was time to leave the nest. He didn't mention, and I doubt it had anything to do with "fear of inbreeding," as a couple of other members have mentioned. Cats have no morals where it comes to breeding.
It's true that in the wild (lions are a good example), the adult males will drive away the adolescents, who will eventually move on to establish their own prides.
On the other hand, since the two kittens in question are both females, aside from Chile's various medical problems, it's very possible that Chile is exhibiting a normal female cat's territorial instincts against other female cats. She doesn't exhibit aggression toward Tweek, the matriarch of the household, however, she will defend her number 2 status in the hierarchy against these younger upstarts.
Comments
We took in a feral cat(Patches)because she was pregnant.She had a litter of 4 and was a great Mom for the first 6 weeks. After that she wanted to be free to run out and she would only come “home” to eat. When she would come home, she would growl & hiss at her kittens. She wouldn’t let them any where near her. As soon as she was done eating, she would want back out again. We were able to get her spayed, but that didn’t change her. She still would growl & hiss at her kittens. She ended up staying away all together, but we see her out & about every so often and she has a flea collar on so she must have found a new “hotel”. At lease we stopped her from having more kittens, and she seems very happy as she roams around.I see her from my computer room window every so often. We gave 2 of her kittens away, and kept 2…They get along fine with our other 3 cats and our 2 Chihuahuas.
hello everyone, I am Cathrine. I’m new here and I just wanted to say hello to everyone, I’ve actually been reading a lot of posts on this forum for a while but this is my first post here
We took in a feral cat as well and she was pregnant at the time. She delivered 6 kittens, two of which we kept. Mom loves one but not the other (both female). One is coddled, cleaned, and played with while the other simply walks into the same room as Mom and gets growled at and swatted. We have never seen an altercation between the two that could have caused this. The kitten seems confused as well (she is 6 months old now). Lately she (kitten) been peeing on the couch and bed so I wonder if it is territorial?