Help! Mummy cat and kitten not getting on

[Hotandbothered222]

We adopted a 3 year old cat and her 4 month old boy kitten earlier this year, and all was great at first. Now boy kitten is 9 months old and I don’t know if it’s the dynamic changing or what, but all is not good!

Boy kitten is fine, but mummy cat keeps growling at him, swiping at him as he goes past, and generally not happy he’s there.

She’s also been over grooming and scratching so we took her to the vet and was diagnosed with allergies…got given 2 weeks of steroids. Steroids finished, problem no better.

We’ve got feliway plugged in upstairs and downstairs and just started her on Zykelne in case that helps.

Ive never had a pair of cats before, only singles, so I don’t know if them not getting on is normal, and something they can live with? I don’t want one of them to decide they’ve had enough and disappear off somewhere! They are outdoor cats. Poor babies - I just want them to be happy!

This is all far too familiar... we adopted a mama and the smallest kitten. They were cute for a few weeks, the kitten was neutered (CP spayed her before she came to us) and then all hell broke loose. 13 years later and we still have two cats who co-exist rather than being cuddly together. We used to send photos to each other if they curled up less than a foot apart...

Then we got another kitten. Who is now 3 and wants to play all the time. Male. The original boy loathes him. Kitten jumps on the mama... chases her, and we've got chaos all over again. Feliway does absolutely nothing. I've just been shouting at them and trying to save the life of my curtains

I still dream of a bonded pair. Oh well...

Good luck!!

Oh dear, this is not promising! I suppose the best they can hope for is that they tolerate each other. I really don’t want one to upsticks and take themselves off elsewhere( as happened to a childhood friend of mine who had siblings - the boy decided he’d had enough and left!)