Kitten "Plays" with a Plush Toy too Rough?

[Meow]

Since the moment my kitten saw me taking the toy out of the bag, he immediately attacked it. With every new day the plays became more, and more rough, and now he always immediately launches for its neck, and sinks his teeth into it with full force, like his life depends on it. He gives no chance to this toy to survive. Absolutely merciless, and aggressive like this toy was about to attack his children, or something. He never growls though, and always "plays" (if you can call it that way) silently. I am wondering, and worrying, if it is an okay behaviour, or am I training a killer machine in my house? Maybe I should teach him to tone it down a bit, or should I encourage him to engage into these battles to "death"? If I do, then how do I teach a cat to play more nicely when I cannot feel, if he's biting too hard. It's hard to tell...

Thanks!

[Lilith]

Hi Meow, he sounds fine to me - as long as he's gentle with you. Cats are killer machines; when it comes to catching prey they aren't 'nice' and he's behaving instinctively with what sounds to be a favourite toy - sounds like he gets a lot of enjoyment and exercise out of it.

What is the toy by the way? It sure sounds to be a success!

[Meow]

It's a plushy white sheep. It has nice ears, and legs, so it represents an animal very nicely. It's just a tiny bit smaller than the kitten. It wasn't just a week ago - the kitten is growing up so fast, it's crazy. I went to the farm where I picked him up 3 weeks ago, and all the other kittens are still there (no one wanted to pick them up, yet ;(. What is strange is that they almost didn't grow up. Mine, however looks like he's not 2.5 months old, but like 6-7 months already. Maybe it's because he's a male, while they're females? On the other hand, they're eating only that dry market rubbish food, while I'm feeding him raw flesh since I got him. His teeth are still like little pimples, almost invisible, but he's already chewing meet like a wild animal, and doesn't even touch that dry food specifically designed for kittens. I buy him some raw meat, liver, heart, and I chop it up, then I mix it with some morbid, gelatine-based cat food, and kitten dry food (just 2-3 drops). He eats it all, and in the end, those 2-3 drops of dry food are always left aside uneaten. Well, when I'm away, or sleeping in my room, he actually eats the dry food, but, as soon, as I wake up, he starts meowing for the meat. He's an animal, a beast, and he's only 2.5 months old. I know, it's a bit too soon to give him raw meat, but he loves it so much, he doesn't want anything else now, and I think because of it he grows up so much faster, and behaves so much more aggressively with his toys than I've ever seen before. You know, how they say, "it must be something in the food!",

What do you think, humans?

[booktigger]

I know breeders who wean onto raw food, but there is a balance to ensure they get the correct nutrients, and purely muscle meat wont' be enough - have you done much research into it?

[Meow]

You don't have to really read a lot. Just ask yourself, what's in a mouse, what's in a small bird? Just some meat, bones, liver, blood, fur, feather, skin, brains.
Bones: too soon for him to chew on, so forget about it.
Liver, and heart: you can get bird liver, and heart in a grocery store.
Blood: it's in the raw meat.
Fur, feather, skin: check out bird meat with skin on it in a grocery store - a lot of times you will find feather on the skin. Take that one, carefully cut the part of skin with father out, and give it to your cat.
Brains: no brainer - you can get it in a grocery store.
If your grocery store doesn't have some of those parts, you can check out a meat market - those peeps always have all the parts you could ever wish for, and even more.

I noticed my cat had natural ground fighting skills, like stuff I've seen on UFC. The grappling, and choking, and all the other stuff - it's so similar to the grapple fighting between two professional UFC fighters. I found it very entertaining, so I started performing escapes, and counter-attacks with the toy - it's very comfortable to manipulate its long, durable, yet plushy, soft legs. Now, it's as much entertaining for me, as it is for him - I use those toy legs to try, and free the toy's neck from his grasp, and then get an edge. It's a lot of fun.

As yet another experiment I have shown him some videos of big wild cats, like tigers, and gepards chasing, attacking, and jumping for their prey. His reaction was amazing - he watched the entire video with huge interest, and then immediately after jumped onto my bed, and started jumping very high on it, chasing whatever, like a pillow, or a poor unsuspecting toy, lying on the bed. Watching the video made him very enthusiastic, and what's more interesting is that I noticed him trying to incorporate the moves he saw on the video.

[Lilith]

Lol, it sounds like you've got the thug of the litter! Bless him!

I'm not an expert on nutrition which is why I usually stick to conventional catfood where the balance is already worked out for me, but some cats do love raw meat, and it's good for their teeth, especially a raw bone or gristly strip for them to chew on; I used to breed Siamese and if I had a fresh rabbit I'd give the kittens some rabbits' feet to play tigers with - 'Miaoooo-woo-woo-woo!' Even if they weren't fully weaned they'd go mad; they were getting plenty of milk from their mother and now they wanted meat! Fooling about with a rabbit's foot increased their interest in the dish of mashed catfood or meat left down for them to investigate. (Bred the rabbits myself so knew there were no parasites or nasties.) It's a long time since I made it, but if I was slicing up a piece of steak for stroganoff and cutting off any fatty bits (still with plenty of meat on) my youngest cat LOVED them.

It sounds as if your boy's grown apace on his diet but I'd definitely keep to a good quality kitten food as a staple, accompanied by the raw meat which he obviously loves; as Booktigger says, the diet has to be balanced and there are plenty of people on here who can advise. He sounds to be thriving bless him! I once had a kitten who used to kick the hell out of a toy animal nearly as big as he was. He was such a gentle little soul otherwise

[booktigger]

Actually, while he's too young for bones, that's one of the most crucial elements as they get calcium for them, and a lot of raw feeders use ground bone meal - while you might think it's as easy as that (and most cats don't eat feathers), you have to get the ratios right or you will end up with a poorly cat. We used to have a raw feeder on here, but not seen her for a while.

[Meow]

What about him growing much faster than his brothers, and sisters? I went to the friend's farm again to double check, and there some males there as well, but they are all the same size. He's like two times longer than the others xD Another thing to notice is that his fur is colored completely differently from the others. He's the only one who looks more, or less like his mother.
By the way, what breed is this?

Thanks!

http://imgur.com/a/nHztt

[Lilith]

Oooh isn't he long and lanky! Some Siamese or Oriental there I wouldn't mind betting. It's like people - in a family there'll be someone small like dad or tall like mother. But probably his growth rate will be also down to a one-to-one home and more lavish food (no offence to the farmer.)

He's a lovely lad

[Lilith]

Also, a cat in heat can conceive kittens with different males; one litter of kittens can have two or more fathers and it could be that your boy might have a different father to his sisters.

[booktigger]

Breed wise he's just a moggy, colour wise he's tabby and white. I fostered one litter where at 9 weeks the smallest weighed 580g, the heaviest was 1.1kg!

[Meow]

Thank you for all the information! <33333