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I have grown up having kitties but I have never seen this.
We have the new comer, the calaco tabby kitty; and we have Mouse and PC. PC is still being a grouch but he is getting better.
Mouse on the other hand just made me raise an eye brow… she and the kitten are gettng along just fine BUT she starts her “hey baby” call and coming up to the kitten and biting her around the neck. Not at the scruff but on the side and towards the throat. There is no growling and the kitten just sits there. WHAT is Mouse doing or trying to do?
Is she trying to be a mother? Is she trying to show the kitten who is top female kitty in the house?Any one know or can provide links to help me understand? Do I need to keep them separated until the kitten gets bigger??? I am confused… I have never seen this before.
Thanks.
Hmm… I’m not sure. All the cats I’ve ever had have been boys, so I’ve never seen a female interact with the new girl. Hope someone else here can tell you something.
My parent’s one cat(Coco) does that to the other(Baby). I think it’s more of a dominance show than anything else. Coco only does it if he’s stressed and he doesn’t bite hard. Baby will stand there for a bit then hiss, pull free and walk off…
I’d guess it’s a sign of dominance too but nothing to be overly concerned about. I’ve only ever had two cats (still with me but enjoying old age) but the behaviour described sounds like something my female rabbit used to do to her baby. He was male so as he was getting older he was probably trying to rule the roost and she’d just kinda nip at his neck to control him I guess. Especially when it came to when I fed them both. “I’m first” sort of thing.
Still don’t know what she is doing but its just weird. She keeps doing her little “sweet” call and such. The kitten just rolls over and such. It might be a dominance thing… I’ll just keep my eyes on them to make sure nothing REALLY weird happens.
Thanks for the info and ideas! 😉
Is the new kitty a female? She is super cute by the way! If she is it can become a problem since females are very territorial. They usualy don’t accept another female in the house or anywhere near.
My friend got a female kitty ( “Can I” That is her name, truly it is!) in the house that was already occupied by a male (“Pipper”) and female (“Jazmine”)adult cats.
It went smoothly with the male but not the female.
Now the kitten is 4 years old and “Can I” took over and still don’t get along with the other “Jazmine” . “Can I” actualy attacks “Jazmine” every chanses she gets, they can’t be in the same room together. 🙄Calico=female….no such thing as a male calico.
Anyway, depending on whether your cats are spayed or not also affects relationships among them.
I would guess that you are seeing dominance behavior, however it sounds like the kitten is making the correct response and not challenging your adult kitty’s position, as long as the new kitty continues to give ground they should get along fine.
I would recommend spaying her though. I had 3 female cats at one point, all three were brought into the family at different times, all were spayed, and while they fussed at each other at first, all got along just fine. I wouldn’t worry too much, they will work out their own hierarchy just give them time to work it out.
Kyrin
Kyrin wrote:Calico=female….no such thing as a male calico.
I should have paid attention to that.
Sorry I wasn’t thinking!
😆
That might explain why this is happening.Kyrin wrote:Calico=female….no such thing as a male calico.
Anyway, depending on whether your cats are spayed or not also affects relationships among them.
I would guess that you are seeing dominance behavior, however it sounds like the kitten is making the correct response and not challenging your adult kitty’s position, as long as the new kitty continues to give ground they should get along fine.
I would recommend spaying her though. I had 3 female cats at one point, all three were brought into the family at different times, all were spayed, and while they fussed at each other at first, all got along just fine. I wouldn’t worry too much, they will work out their own hierarchy just give them time to work it out.
Kyrin
I think you *can* get a male calico, but they are ridiculously rare compared to the females, and I think they are almost always sterile. From Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calico_cat)
Quote:For a cat to be a tortoiseshell or calico, it must simultaneously express both of the alleles, O and o, which are two versions of the same gene, located at the same locus on the X chromosome. Males normally cannot do this: they can have only one allele, as they have only one X chromosome, consequently virtually all tortoiseshell or calico cats are females. Occasionally a male is born (the rate is approximately 1 in 3,000[2]). These may have Klinefelter’s syndrome, carrying an extra X chromosome, and will almost always be sterile or they may be a chimera resulting from the fusion of two differently coloured embryos.
I didn’t check the sources, but found several sites that mentioned Klinefelter’s syndrome – where there is 2 X and 1 Y chromosome. They have the male characteristics (proper organs) but can display the calico pattern in cats.
No to be picky but figured it was a cool bit of information. 🙂
Dragon87 wrote:Kyrin wrote:Calico=female….no such thing as a male calico.
Anyway, depending on whether your cats are spayed or not also affects relationships among them.
I would guess that you are seeing dominance behavior, however it sounds like the kitten is making the correct response and not challenging your adult kitty’s position, as long as the new kitty continues to give ground they should get along fine.
I would recommend spaying her though. I had 3 female cats at one point, all three were brought into the family at different times, all were spayed, and while they fussed at each other at first, all got along just fine. I wouldn’t worry too much, they will work out their own hierarchy just give them time to work it out.
Kyrin
I think you *can* get a male calico, but they are ridiculously rare compared to the females, and I think they are almost always sterile. From Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calico_cat)
Quote:For a cat to be a tortoiseshell or calico, it must simultaneously express both of the alleles, O and o, which are two versions of the same gene, located at the same locus on the X chromosome. Males normally cannot do this: they can have only one allele, as they have only one X chromosome, consequently virtually all tortoiseshell or calico cats are females. Occasionally a male is born (the rate is approximately 1 in 3,000[2]). These may have Klinefelter’s syndrome, carrying an extra X chromosome, and will almost always be sterile or they may be a chimera resulting from the fusion of two differently coloured embryos.
I didn’t check the sources, but found several sites that mentioned Klinefelter’s syndrome – where there is 2 X and 1 Y chromosome. They have the male characteristics (proper organs) but can display the calico pattern in cats.
No to be picky but figured it was a cool bit of information. 🙂
I knew that, but figured I didn’t want to go into that much detail. LOL! It was a lot shorter to just say that Calico=female…though I do know that the rare male calico can occur, it has to be a genetic accident for it to happen…and like your article says, they are sterile. I bet it would be a cool looking cat though. Since females tend to be smaller than males.
You can certainly have a male calico, but he will be XXY and sterile.
The reason for this is has to do with the second X chromosome. Tri-color kitties are affected by that second X chromosome because only the X chromosome can carry the red gene. So attached to the X chromosome is the ‘O’ gene, which can be OO which is orange, oo which is not orange and Oo which combines to the interesting effect of a color that is not orange.
So in order for Oo to happen,there has to be two X chromosomes, because that’s where the gene is. An XY, or male cat, will only have either O, or o, he cannot have OO, oo, or Oo.
Make sense?
Kyrin wrote:Calico=female….no such thing as a male calico.
Anyway, depending on whether your cats are spayed or not also affects relationships among them.
I would guess that you are seeing dominance behavior, however it sounds like the kitten is making the correct response and not challenging your adult kitty’s position, as long as the new kitty continues to give ground they should get along fine.
I would recommend spaying her though. I had 3 female cats at one point, all three were brought into the family at different times, all were spayed, and while they fussed at each other at first, all got along just fine. I wouldn’t worry too much, they will work out their own hierarchy just give them time to work it out.
Kyrin
OOps Kyrin, sorry, there are tri colored males (calico, mine was) but they’re usually sterile. 😉
hmmm, I should have read down further. 😳 😆 😆 😆
Genetics rules! 😉
Just a note…I have 4 female cats and while they’re not best friends, they certainly tolerate each other well.
lamortefille wrote:Genetics rules! 😉
Just a note…I have 4 female cats and while they’re not best friends, they certainly tolerate each other well.
We actually covered this in one of my biology classes, and the actual distribution of color has to do with the barr bodies (the extra X chromosome) in the skin cells. The Barr bodies will show up in a patch of distribution here, and then the other X chromosome will make up the Barr bodies in the other patch of cells and those make the color patches.
You can even see Barr bodies on the nuclei of White blood cells under the microscope. I used to count them when I was doing a WBC count at work.
I do love biology, it’s a really awesome thing.
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