Strange Kitten Behaviour - Ear Licking/Sucking

Hello there,

If you happen to be a regular forum crawler, you might remember me as the guy in China who found four kittens on the patio and decided to raise them for fun. Well, that was three months or so ago and now they are quite large and still very much around. Not quite housecats, our four are still quite domesticated in the sense that that they come straight to us for their meals and always roam around our patio and sleep in the sheltered cage we gave them.

Anyhow, the main reason that I am posting this is because I've noticed some odd behaviour going on between the four. Two of the kittens are slightly larger and more aggressive and have developed this strange habit of lying on the other two and sucking or licking the backside of their ears. What this has resulted in is the two smaller ones have large yellow spots behind their ears, and the fur is all matted together. Will this have negative effects in the long term? Is this because they miss the bottle we used to feed them with? (We stopped bottle feeding them about 6 weeks ago after they developed the habit of biting straight through the plastic nipple).

Thanks for any suggestions or advice you guys might have~

hi! Sure ear sucking and licking reminds them of their mother. You say the
kittens are about 3 months old, thus they try to suck somethign suitable they can find. Such behaviour may remain stable for some kittens who are much more older (7-8 month). This habit is individual and of course its not
typical for every kitten. But many motherless kittens usually try to suck some parts of others pets bodies living side by side with them. (Beg pardon for my poor English).

.

Thanks for the reply, answers the main question of why are they doing it. The thing is, it looks rather mean and I would like to know if any long-term damage to their skin or fur might arise from this behaviour. Its particularly creepy when the fattest cat just lies on one of his siblings sucking, as if the smaller one can't be bothered to retort. Anyhow, any advice as to what to make of this would be appreciated.

If they view you as a foster parent, you might try and put an old sweater with your scent in there, preferably something really soft and cuddly, just put it in your bed for one night; that should do the trick.

Then put it in with them, that way you might tempt them to suckle the sweater instead of each other