Kept a kitten and mum cat freaking out.

[TomsBentPinky]

Hiya,

My cat had a litter of kittens, they all left a few days ago and we decided to keep a little female.

Mum has been really distressed, we thought at first it was because the other kittens had gone (sad but we could not keep all of them!) but a week later shes still really freaked out.

When ever shes been out she comes back in with massive eyes, meowing madly, making these weird 'brrrrrrr' sounds.

She is being really awful (through my human eyes) to her kitten. Shes constantly pinning her down and biting her, causing the kitten to 'scream' and just 'hunting' her and chasing her.

I've just had to put her outside because she was doing this really badly to the kitten.

I don't want to get rid of the kitten, we all really love her and we love mum too and she won't be going anywhere.

I don't know if this is 'normal' behaviour for cats? any advice would be great.

PS mum is being nuetered on Friday (any advice on that, after care ect?)

thanks

Yes, it is normal.

Mum knows that kitten should be out in the big wide world now and is encouraging her to move out.

In the wild all the kittens would have left by now because mum was biting them etc.

Ah, but are we OK to keep the kitten then? Will she eventually settle with her?

Probably will settle, but she's going to go through the mill a bit.

We had that when we kept one of a litter. Mother cat occasionally attacked the kitten but most of the time she just looked at him with a 'WTF expression'. There is nothing like a cat for expressing utter disgust.
The kitten grew quickly and was soon able to give as good as he got and they settled down happily together.

Our cat had 2 litters of kittens and rejected them both (long story, 15 kittens in total) and lost them all bar one which we hand reared. He thinks he's a human in a cat jacket, or we're cats in human jackets and he and his mother really, really don't get on. Every time she goes past him she hums at him, and he tries to bully her half the time. Every now and then they forget and curl up together but most of the time they lead separate lives. They're happy to eat at the same time, but generally have different hanging out places and avoid each other.

She's probably telling him that it's her house and it's time to move on, but once she realises that kitty is staying I expect she'll begrudgingly be ok. Being spayed may help, I would just work on keeping them separate when possible for their peace of mind and let them work it out, if necessary when kitty is a bit bigger!