Kitten chewing wires ...

[Secretmum41]

Our gorgeous kitten is now 8 months old. She’s so friendly and loving, super active, adorable in every way possible. She had a poor start to life but you would never know it from looking at her.

She chews wires ... literally gnaws at them like a dog would! I’ve never seen a kitten/cat do this! She does the same with elastic - which is fine as she can’t do much damage.

Any ideas how to stop her chewing? It’s not as easy as just spraying/coating wires with bitter tastes or encasing wires in a pipe ... there’s so many wires around the house that you don’t think about really. The dc won’t let her in their rooms as she chews their earphone cables, charger cables etc. She has literally chewed 2 sets of Christmas lights in half!

Any advice would be gratefully appreciated.

[Pawprintjoy]

Watching as our kitten does the same, annoying as his favourite room to sleep in is dds and dd is the worst at cleaning so we have lost multiple pairs of earphones and chargers to the kitten (and dangerous to all of us )

[LittleKitty1985]

Rub Tabasco on them

[MadCatEnthusiast]

My 8 month kitten went through that in her first few months here. We just spray the area with bitter apple and cats hate the taste so she’ll learn. Also, just bang/stomp/make a noise whenever you see her do it.

[Plump82]

My cats 17 and still likes to chew wires. Just wanted to say please, please be careful with her chewing elastic. Or anything really. In particular at this time of year, Christmas ribbon. Mine chewed ribbon and ended up seriously ill in the animal hospital with her organs failing. The ribbon had tied up her intestines and all her organs shut down. It was a horrible time and im now so vigilent she can't get her paws on anything she can chew!

[AnnaMagnani]

Kittens love wires.

This is on you - you need to teach her not to do it, not watch her.

Every single time you shout at her, make a noise, if necessary tap her out of the way - not in a cute picking her up way but so she knows you are cross, think mum cat telling off kitten.

Everyone in the house needs to be doing it. At 8 months she should be giving it up now.

[Pinkprincess1978]

Ours does that - apparently normal. What we read was it's boredom that makes them do it so we have been making more of an effort to play with him.

[Prokupatuscrakedatus]

Sev is 3 years old now.
He hunts for those thin charger and earphone cables - on tables, in handbags, under pillows and kills them with a single bite - if we don't tell him "no" in time. With our previous cat it was household cleaning gloves. He used to steal them and hide them under his bath mat.

Taught us to secure our cables and not leave them about.

[FuckminsterBullerene]

Mine did it for a couple of years. We tried wrapping tin foil round the wires. Worked to a certain extent. We covered as many wires as possible and eventually they grew out of it.

[AnnaMagnani]

Boredom is a good point - mine stopped quickly partly as always told off and also they had another kitten to amuse them.

2 kittens cause a lot less house wreckage than one.

If she isn't chewing cables she needs something else to do - being played with, activity toys, toys where food is hidden and so on. Otherwise she'll just create her own entertainment wreck stuff

[katcatkat]

We stopped it in 3 ways one was to hide as many cables as we could, the second was to remove cables and tell cat off gently, the third for a particular cable that was a problem was to wipe the cable with vinegar on a cloth. We found that now cables will only be played with if they move so he leaves most of them alone now at 9 months old.

[SpoonBlender]

Ours have mostly gone through that phase - doesn't last too long, but has cost me a fair bit in headphones and phone charget cables. "PSSSHT!" them off when you catch them at it, Bitrex spray on the cables if they go back for more.

[Secretmum41]

anna Obviously we tell her off when we see her doing it ..we don’t just sit and watch her!

Realistically it’s not feasible to hide/coat every set of wires in the house.

It’s definitely not boredom. It’s like she has a need/compulsion to chew/gnaw. It’s not her teeth, she’s been checked by our vet. I’m thinking it boils down to her poor start in life. She was separated from mum and hand reared from 3 days old (long story). She’s had health issues due to this but is now, miraculously, fully recovered, 100% clean bill of health. I wonder if it’s some kind of behaviour issue connected to all of this.

My family has had cats for a very long time over the years and we’ve never come across a one that chews in this way. I thought it was very odd ... but after being on here I think it’s much more common than I thought!