Cats ganging up?

[blueemerald]

Hi,
We have 6 cats. 4 females and 2 males. We have Izzy, Hector and Mini and Mini's 3 now adult kittens Maud, Caddy and Max. 5 are spayed/neutered (Mini hasn't been done because she is our 'autistic cat' terrified of anything that moves, doesn't really understand 'how' to be a cat etc and we genuine believe the shock/distress could kill her, now our boy cats are neutered no one capable of getting her pregnant gets near her as she never goes more than 2 steps past the back door).
All 6 have always got on very well for years until now.
Izzy, Hector and Max have all turned on Maud. They attack her, chase her around, hound her whenever they see her. It's got to the point where Maud spends 80% of her time in one room, hiding away from them.
Does anyone have any ideas why this might have happened and what we can do about it?

Sounds like she is the whipping boy of the pack. One of ours was like that too. I don't know what you'd do about it though.

Poor cat.

I'm not sure there's anything you can do about it when there are so many involved and if the behaviour has become ingrained. (Sounds like they've formed a mini-colony and they want her out.) You can sometimes try re-introduction techniques when you've only a couple but 6? Even with two cats it's not always successful because they sometimes come to flat out dislike each other.

The only thing I was wondering about is whether, when Mini comes into heat as she still presumably does, her scents could be causing some reaction among all the cats? The reason I'm speculating is that if you rehome Maud (and I fear that you may have to start thinking along those lines) the majority of those left will choose a new cat among themselves to pick on ?

I'd be interested to hear of any others' experiences.

Poor you. Very upsetting when this sort of thing happens.

The behaviour has been going on for about 2 weeks. They've always gotten on very well up until now.
I hadn't thought about Mini being in heat affecting their behaviour, we may just have to sedate her and get her spayed. Hector (oldest male) is by far the worst offender so I wonder if we tried the reintroduction techniques with him then the others might follow his lead?
If we can't come up with a solution then we may have to look at re-homing but she has reoccurring problems with her eyes, which need drops regularly and I worry this will put people off.

Might be worth thinking about the spaying but be sure to check with the vet about the effect of sedation before a GA eg if it's recommended and relevant timings.

Good luck anyway.

Are there too many of them for the space available, and they are trying to drive one out?

I don't think the space is too small? We have a 5 bedroom house with 4 rooms on the ground floor and a large garden which backs on to a lot of other gardens. You rarely see more than 3 cats together unless it's feeding time.