Kitten just had a litter of 3 a day ago. We were out of town. Her son, Shadow, was born last August (9 months old, now). He was the only one. (A litter of 1!) All during her pregnancy Kitten wanted nothing to do with him, hissing and chasing him away from her. Now since the birth, they are like best friends. He is even grooming her but he keeps removing the new kittens from the box. I'm afraid he will hurt them. He is still young and looks like he wants to play with them or is some kind of hunting instinct coming out?

-- Margot O (moonglow@hemc.net), April 28, 2002

Answers

Neutered male cats are famous for being good foster parents. We had one who would let kittens suckle on him! Still, best to watch him, ya never know. Is Shadow neutered?

-- Elizabeth (Lividia66@aol.com), April 28, 2002.

No, he's not. He's totally indoors. We talked about doing it very often and having Kitten spayed and then we wound up out of work and Kitten got pregnant!! These 2 important things have just gone up on the priority list! Thanks for your answer.

-- Margot O (moonglow@hemc.net), April 28, 2002.

I wonder if Shadow is courting?

-- Terri (hooperterri@prodigy.net), April 28, 2002.

Un-neutered male cats will kill the kittens so that the mother cat will go into heat sooner. Usually the female will not go into heat until after the mama is done nursing her kittens. I read this in a cat book many years ago. I also remember it happening to a friend's kittens when I a kid. Now, I don't know if a young male would do this. He may just think they are baby gophers or something.

-- Nancy (ninjabut@aol.com), April 28, 2002.

Not all males will kill the young. We have a large tom who stays through the winter,then comes & goes. We have several batches of kittens, some in an open box by the milk bowl. He's always there, never messes with them. Don't they just kill rival tom's offspring?

-- Suzanne (weir@frontiernet.net), April 28, 2002.

My male cats run from kittens.

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@hotmail.com), April 28, 2002.

We have two two year old male neutered cats, and one 6 month old non neutered male (that's going to visit the Vet next week) one of the older males is excellent with our 3 week old kitten, the other older male doesn't do anything to her but he does hiss, the younger male is a goober and wants to play with her, but acts afraid of her. Momma cat gets along with everyone except the young goober cat, she'll put him in his place if he stares at, or gets to close to the kitten. We've had more problems with my beagle than the other cats, Champy will stare, drool, and lick his lips at the kitten, he's got smacked but he still does it. I don't trust him around the kitten, all the other dogs are fine with her. All we can think of when he does this is Fat Bastard from the Austin Powers movies, "Kinda looks like a baby" "Get in my belly!"

Stacy in NY--> who's hubby is a big Austin Powers fan

-- Stacy (KincoraFarm@aol.com), April 29, 2002.

I think the point here is what Margot's cats are doing not what ours are doing. Margot, if you are going to let your cat have kittens (shame)separate her and the kittens. Stop fooling around with the young male and for heavens sakes at least get him neutered, it doesn't cost that much! He will cheerfully breed his mother and get her PG again! Plus as he matures there is a strong possibility that he will start marking his property(quite normal)which means spraying everything in sight with urine, strong urine! Have fun with the kittens, if they live, they are surely fun to have and observe. LQ

-- Little Quacker (carouselxing@juno.com), April 29, 2002.

I thought this forum would never come back! We had Shadow neutered last Tuesday. Found a great non-profit place in Marietta, GA. $20 neutering/$40 spaying. Also found out that they can do pediatric neuter and spay at 8 weeks! Shadow doesn't move the babies anymore. Now he just gets in the box with momma and kids! He's grooming all of them! We're keeping one of the 3 kittens and will have momma spayed when she stops nursing. Thanks for all your info! Margot

-- Margot O (moonglow@hemc.net), May 07, 2002.