6 month old kitten roughhousing with 10 week old kitten

Noctu

Hi, I'd be grateful for some advice!

We have a 6 month old male kitten and we recently (1 week ago) adopted a 10 week old female kitten. All vaccinated, chipped etc, male kitten is neutered and female will be neutered when she's old enough. Kitten has had her own room with food and litter box, we've been moving it around in the last few days to get her to explore the house more, and she's doing that naturally anyway

The issue is our male kitten is playing too rough with the female. The female kitty has really come out of her shell, becoming friendlier and less scared/hiding etc. But our male kitten is jumping on her, squashing her, then putting his arms around her neck and biting her! He's just playing but he's too rough with her, she makes these horrible cries/squawks when he's squashing/biting her but then will chase after him after I've separated them as she wants to be close to him/play with him?!

I've kept them separated mostly but been trying to introduce them more over the past few days as she seems settled in her new surroundings. I've tried not to supervise too closely (I always watch though) as I know cat things need to happen like bum sniffing and what not! But how can we get past this? Should I allow him to play with her like this and hope/expect that she will 'let him know' if it's too rough? Establishing a kitty hierarchy?? Or only allow them to play a couple of hours a day and separate them when it gets too much? It's confusing as she doesn't seem bothered or hurt or anything when he does it apart from the awful squawking!

Thanks for any advice Here's a pic of her (called Juno)!


and our boy called Tiberius:

scaredy_cat

i'd say try not to jump in too soon to stop him jumping and trying to play with her, she needs to tell him off herself and she will be capable of it.

if she didn't like it, she's soon run and hide from him or get to a place where he couldn't get her.

Winter_Jasmine

Agree with the above.

Cats do this when mating but obviously he can't actually do the deed. They also do it to show dominance, so you're probably right about the pecking order thing. We have two male cats (neutered) who are nearly 10. Every now and then one of them does this to the other one to show him who's boss. We always tell him off if we catch him doing it but he really couldn't give a stuff what we think! It's ironic that he does this as come feeding time it's definitely the other cat who's the dominant one.

I have also read that female cats actually enjoy being bitten on the back of the neck by male cats - apparently they have pleasure receptors there to encourage mating

gettingready

Leave them to it.. they will sort themselves out

Pollycat

Wow! What a handsome boy Tiberius is!

And Juno is a cutie too.

I think if she is running after him to play again then it's probably not upsetting her too much.
And as she grows she'll start to hold her own against him, anyway.

That's what happened with my first 2 cats - older male, younger female.

Noctu

Thanks everyone. What you're saying makes sense I've left them to play together today (whilst watching!) and they're playing but he's still jumping on top of her. She's got a very sharp bite on her - as I found out a day after we got her! - so I'm sure she'll give him a bite if he's going too far.

Mayflower10cat

Kittens/young cats play rough, I mean they really do push the boundaries! Having had just a few cats from kittens, yes, there have been plenty of times [EMAIL="I@d"]I[/EMAIL]'d wanted to intervene in case someone got hurt. Your young male cat is neutered, and your female Catlet isn't, so she smells 'interesting' to a young lad who, whilst he can't actually do anything about it, still feels the pheromone urges! They will sort it out and I'll guess your girl will end up as 'Queen of the House'......

southcoastrgi

I agree with GR just leave them to it, splitting them up for parts of the day will make them worse, as long as she has somewhere to go to get away if she wants, my two are male 5 yrs old & female 11 months old, i just put them together she did hid for parts of the day but now they can't keep away from each other, you also should start to feed them together or they will get into a routine & that will create probs down the line

DaftyDuck

They'll find an acceptable level. It's natural behaviour between kittens, all the more so because one is male, t'other a very pretty female (both are gorgeous!)

Young kittens have very flexible bones indeed, so it's unlikely rough & tumble will cause any problems in that line.

The fact that she's joining in again shows she's not traumatised by it all and the sound effects might be her getting practice in for later... when the ladies do yell rather. Luckily he's neutered, so....

Let 'em play. They enjoy it, so should you!

Noctu

Thanks for all your advice. Just an update, they are getting on really well, they're playing together and feeding together. She's become his shadow pretty much which is very cute!

Some new pics...


Playing and cuddling in the washing basket (on a pile of freshly washed underwear... !!)

The whole gang! (with our old girl Lily)

Pollycat

Didn't we tell you it would all work out OK in the end?

Glad they're sorted, pics are great.