To be considering rehoming my cat if this continues?

[nigelladawson]

I bought 2 farm cats, both boys and both from the same litter. They're 17 months old now. They settled into our family amazingly and I love them to bits.

They have always gotten along well enough, they kind of stay out of each other's way but once in a while will groom each other. They do play fight and a few times I've had to intervene as it's getting quite intense and they do hiss at each other if the other goes near their food.

During the night there was so much banging and running up and down the stairs, I heard a few hisses but I assumed it was the two of them playing. This morning the more timid one had a limp and was being very subdued and wouldn't let me touch him. I noticed that when he made eye contact with his brother that his ears went back and he has completely avoided him all day.

I took him to the vet and he has cellulitis caused by a cat bite. He had a high temperature and the vet said it was lucky I brought him in. When we got home from the vets he went and hid outside all day, only coming in recently.

I asked the vet if his brother had bitten him but the vet said it would be unusual for a brother to do that and it's more likely to be another cat. So either another cat was in the house last night which explains the hissing and banging about, or it was him and his brother that I heard and his brother did this to him or it happened outside, completely unrelated to what I heard last night.

My question is this, if it was his brother how do I make sure this doesn't happen again? And if it does happen again and I have proof it was his brother then am I being unreasonable to considering rehoming his brother to a home with no cats?

I absolutely do not want to do this but I couldn't think of another way around it! Any ideas?

Of course you’d be unreasonable to rehome over this. Sort the cat flap in case if was another cat. Keep them separate at night or when you’re not around if necessary. You don’t just dump one of them.

I highly recommend a microchip cat flap. We got one after an invading cat killed DS's hamster in the night. I wish we had got one sooner as that was v traumatic.
I think it fitted easily into the hole for the previous cat flap, and I fitted it (very few DIY skills).

Hang on, if the cat was bitten overnight, he wouldn't have developed cellulitis immediately would he? Seems more likely he was bitten a day or two before. The kerfuffle you heard could have been unrelated to the bite, or could have been that the bitten cat felt ill so was being aggressive.