Cat Chat Feline Forum

Hi I have a 13 week old resident kitten and i have had a 9 week old new kitten (both DSH tabbies) and for the past week I have been doing various scent swapping and feeding between closed doors etc with no problems. When we had the door ajar and a couple of meetings in new kitten's room with new kitty in a carrier/large cage resident kitten has been hissing and last night she growled at him lots and would have taken a swipe at him had it not been for the bars in the way.

new kitty has been so excited about her and chirrups to her everytime he sees or senses her.

I have had some conflicting advice on what to do next. Apparently it's normal for some hissing to be going on and I should carry on with these intros, but other articles I've read say it's not good and we need to start back from the beginning.

I've ordered some Felliway diffuser so will try that soon.

Any ideas or advice would be most welcome, thanks so much! x

It's been a long while since I have had a couple of kittens in the house, but from what I remember serious fallings-out between two such young ones are very unlikely - kittens are much more interested in playing than fighting, so try to engage them at the same time with a long bit of string, or a flying toy, and they will soon forget any hostilities - though play fighting is quite normal

others with more kitten experience than me might disagree, but I wouldn't bother to separate them unless you see any signs of serious aggression, or serious fear, in one or both

thank you Kay, so do you think hissing and growling and taking a swipe is not serious aggression?

I will defo try playing with them both with a toy, not sure it'll work as when she was stalking his carrier i tried to roll a ball to her and she was not in the mood to play!!

I'd recommend getting one of those feathers on a wand toys, which you can thrust between them if needs be, but I do suspect separating them is likely to interfere with their natural instincts to engage in normal kitten rough and tumble, and that some of the negative behaviour you have seen stems from that rather than showing any real antipathy

the advice you have been given is, mind you, very sound when it comes to adult cats, especially if one has been an only cat for some time, but kittens are programmed to be part of a boisterous group and I think you must bite the bullet and let them get on with it - I would place a small bet they'll be curling up together really soon, once they have exhausted each other hissing, growling and waving paws at each other

Hi Kay thanks for the advice we have continued with the supervised intros and they continue to chase each other around and wrestle. Unfortunately we have noticed a lump on back of girl resident kitten she now has an absess? From. A bite wound. We are taking her to the vets but this makes me more concerned that they are getting hurt and not resolving differences or settling down. Am I worrying too much?

Are there any other members who have kittens/cats fighting and getting bite wounds? Is there anything else I can do? Thanks x

Hm that's a bit of a new one. Usually most kittens seem to get on just fine and I wouldn't have thought their teeth would be long / strong enough to really bite down that hard - is there a chance your girl cat (what are their names by the way) could have caught herself on something else that would cause a wound?

Are you home with them most of the time or are they left on their own part of the day?

Hi Meriad
Tinkerbell is our girl kitten and the boy kitten is called Shadowfax.
It is possible but as they have been wrestling and when that happens she usually growls screams and spits before they break off initially we thought she was just vocal when play fighting. I was never sure whether he bit her that hard but thinking about it he probably hasn't been able to restrain himself and 'play fair' as it were. His mother weaned him off milk at about 6 weeks and kind of wasn't interested in him after 7 weeks. They are not from same litter btw.

We keep them separated for now when not at home and feed them together and let them run round the house in the evenings. X