need help with our cat biting our new kitten

[wonderingwendy]

we have a 6 month old castrated male called pepper and yesterday we got a tiny kitten (were told it was 9 weeks but after a trip to vets today its more like 6 weeks) called inky
tried to keep them apart but for a little look for the 1st couple of hours (this is hard because pepper can open all doors in the house )
any way the poor little mite is being chased swatted at and now pepper is pinning him down and biting his neck
what can we do - i cant bear him getting hurt -inky does yell but there isnt any wounds there
is this normal for the first few weeks
i dont want pepper to be left out but he just gets so rough i have to separate them ,he is outside just now
any hints ?

[wonderingwendy]

bump

[teanosugar]

I would say its Peppers way of showing the kitten who's boss.
It takes a few weeks/months for new animals to be accepted and to sort the pecking order out.
Kittens do tend to be quite boisterous, so I would say as long as you keep an eye on the 'fighting' they will calm down and accept each other.
We introduced a tiny kitten to our big old cat (15yr), kitten chances his arm at times by trying to rugby tackle big cat and sometimes jumping on her when she's asleep and biting the back of her neck, big cat puts up with some of it then swipes kitten to say enough is enough.
Neither of them have drawn blood.
I tend to pick kitten up and say 'NO' and put him on the floor, away from big cat.
We've had kitten cat since December and they have just started snuggling up together and big cat has started cleaning kitten.
What I did/still do is try and stroke them/fuss them at the same time and that's my way of telling them there's no favouritism.

[wonderingwendy]

the new kitten does nothing to warrant the behaviour of pepper - he never tries to play with him ,he will just be walking and thats all it takes for pepper to pounce and bite him- the hadnt seen each other all night then as soon as pepper saw inky he bit him straight away with no provocation - its so wearing i have to watch pepper like a hawk and its making me resent him

[teanosugar]

Yes, I know what you mean, fat old cat would be minding her own business and kitten cat just launches himself at her, sometimes old cat cries out when he jumps on her back as she has arthritis.
DH at first didn't want to keep kitten (he was found abandoned) as he said it wasn't fair on old cat and she didn't need the aggrivation in her old age.

Kitten has calmed down in the last few months and definately calmed down and cut down on the biting since we had him neutered.

[wonderingwendy]

inky 6 weeks old is calm pepper 6 months old is vicious

[issey6cats]

my half siamese is looking at my foster kits all the time like he wants to eat them, to him they are lunch on legs, he has had a few hard swipes at them, they just run away and i tell him off he seems to be getting the message, and not that long from now the kitten will get bigger and your resi kit will not challange someone his own size so much

[wonderingwendy]

so we are a weeks and half in to owning inky (7 weeks old now) and pepper(6 months old) still wont leave him alone biting inky until he cries loudly even then pepper wont let go and we have intervene
they are still in separate rooms most of the time but when we do let them be in the same room ( 10 mins 3 times a day) he chases inky and bites him with no hesitation
do you think this situation will get better ?
its so wearing for us and the baby

[PigletJohn]

some people use a water pistol to squirt a cat (or dog) who is behaving badly.

If it was me I would have picked him up and scolded him the first and every time.

[ThePinkPussycat]

It certainly sounds like a dominance thing - remember, the back of the neck is the scruff, with folds of skin designed so mums can carry kittens. There is a scruff reflex which persists into adulthood - if scruffed correctly the cat will go limp - perhaps pepper is not doing it quite right and inky's scruff reflex is not being activated.

6 months is still quite young - think boisterous adolescent. And of course inky will grow. I think the situation will sort itself with time.

[wonderingwendy]

funnily enough they have a been better today - only stopping pepper when it looks like its getting out of hand