Questions on castrated male behaviour towards kittens

Hi

We have two cats at home, one is a 6-year old castrated male the other
is a 2 year old female which last week got kittens.
I'd like to know how the castrated male will behave towards the kittens.
Will he be agressive and try to kill them ?
We have tried to keep them separate for now by keping an eye on them but
that will not be possible for very long or during the night.


--
Per W

Per Weisteen wrote:
Hi

We have two cats at home, one is a 6-year old castrated male the
other
is a 2 year old female which last week got kittens.
I'd like to know how the castrated male will behave towards the
kittens.
Will he be agressive and try to kill them ?
We have tried to keep them separate for now by keping an eye on them
but
that will not be possible for very long or during the night.

I've always kept my adult male cats sequestered from newborn
kittens...at least until the kittens were big enough run away if need
be. Even then, its a good idea to supervise the interaction until you
have a good idea of how your adult male is adjusting to his new little
housemates. Its hard to gauge how different cats will react to kittens
as they all have very unique temperaments.

Marie

My female cat had a kitten (just one lived, two kittens were born dead)
last summer, which I decided to keep. I also have a 16 year old
neutered male cat. He pretty much left the kitten alone for the first
six months of her life. Now that she's a little older, he gives her a
scolding (hiss, growl) or a quick bop on the head when he thinks she's
out of line. But nothing fiercer than that. It helps that the kitten
has her mother to play with when she's feeling rambunctious. He is
pretty old now, and has never been an agressive cat(quite the reverse).
I don't think a neutered male would harm kittens, but I couldn't
guarantee that. I think it would very much depend on the personality of
the adult male neuter. I'd say the precaution of keeping him apart
from the kittens for now is a pretty good idea at first You might rub
the kittens gently with a cloth, and then casually leave the cloth
around for the adult male cat to sniff at, so he can get used to the
new kittens' scents. Mother cats are very protective of their kittens,
so you'd probably hear a fight before it got to a fatal stage.

Melissa

On 9 Mar 2005 11:11:38 -0800, "
wrote:

Its hard to gauge how different cats will react to kittens
as they all have very unique temperaments.

Marie

That's true. I have a neutered male we call our uncle cat. He will
watch the kittens when mom's away and will teach them how to play.
Another cat, a female always hisses at babies and we keep her away.
Besides momcat is likely to attack her if she gets close to her
kittens.

BarB

Hi all !

Thanks for the info from all of you. I'll try to keep an eye on them.

Seems for now that the old male is both curious and a little afraid at
the same time. He seldom ventures upstairs and just seems to take a
quick peek into the room where the kittens are and then he quickly
disappears downstairs again.

Regards,

Per W.

On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 13:44:23 +0100, Per Weisteen
wrote:

Hi

We have two cats at home, one is a 6-year old castrated male the other
is a 2 year old female which last week got kittens.
I'd like to know how the castrated male will behave towards the kittens.
Will he be agressive and try to kill them ?
We have tried to keep them separate for now by keping an eye on them but
that will not be possible for very long or during the night.

I'm no expert, but a quick anecdote..

When we brought Louis home, weaned at six weeks (i think?), Tiger
licked his ear as soon as we brough the kitten out of the carrier.
Then there was a little hissing, we kept them quarantined for a couple
weeks, and Tiger adopted him like a brother.

I would think the neutering would prevent the older cat from eating
the kitten (isn't that common in feral cats? Older males eating
kittens from other sires?)

BLink

On 2005-03-09 04:44:23 -0800, Per Weisteen said:

Hi

We have two cats at home, one is a 6-year old castrated male the other
is a 2 year old female which last week got kittens.
I'd like to know how the castrated male will behave towards the
kittens. Will he be agressive and try to kill them ?
We have tried to keep them separate for now by keping an eye on them
but that will not be possible for very long or during the night.

My neutered male (Ming) literally adopted a 4 week old kitten
(Buttercup). Buttercup 's mother was a feral/stray, and the kittens
were snagged at about 4 weeks when the mother looked like she was
getting ready to move them (they never did catch the mother). We
adopted one of the kittens, and kept her away from Ming for a couple of
days until one evening about 3 days after Buttercup arrived I looked
under the table in my workroom and saw Buttercup and Ming curled up
together sleeping. At that point I figured that they were going to be
OK with each other. 8 months later, they groom each other and sleep
together. If the male isn't showing any aggressive tendencies towards
the kittens, it'll probably be fine.

Katrina