Help! Mother attacking kittens.

[MereDintofPandiculation]

Mother cat and two female kittens. All well, close bond, kittens still sleeping close to mother, sometime comfort suckling.

Kittens were spayed yesterday (5 months). Mother now has taken against them, growling and hissing if they come near, swiping at them if they come too near.

Maybe the "vet smell" will wear off and she'll recognise them again, but at the moment it doesn't look like happening.

Meanwhile mother is stressed at the invasion of alien kittens, kittens are stressed because mother is rejecting them...

[Elieza]

Can you get the mother to rub her scent on a cloth or something you rub on her face (or use your hands and get her to scent them with drool and then rub it on the kittens so they smell like her again?Poor little things, how sad.

[FurrySlipperBoots]

Oh no! I would rub them all over with her bedding. Maybe even smear something stinky and nice for cats (fish paste type of thing) on them to encourage grooming?

[viccat]

Totally normal in a multicat home when one (or more) have been at the vet's while others have been at home. It should settle down after a day or two when they start smelling familiar again. Are they wearing cones? That might scare her as well.

[Hereiam3]

This has some helpful tips. thecatsite.com/threads/mother-rejecting-5-month-old-kittens-help.222267/

Try rubbing the mother cats scent on the kittens, do this every day. A feliway plug or spray may help calm her down and maybe keep them apart if you can for a few weeks? It may just be nature taking over and the mother cat not seeing them as kittens anymore

[MereDintofPandiculation]

viccat thanks for the reassurance. We've never had it before in our multi-cat households, but we've never had two generations before.

We'll continue to try to transfer mother's scent on to kittens. Would love to see them back together again, but then that gives us the problem of making sure Mum doesn't start licking their wounds.