Does anyone know why..

Callie had her kittens almost four weeks ago now, and we've noticed that almost everytime we go over to where they stay, whether Callie is with them or not, they usually make these little hissing sounds. I don't know why they'd hiss at any of us, we're always careful with them when we get them out, and we give them attention quite often and let them run around the room when we're there. Does anyone know why they might be hissing at us (if that's even really what they're doing)? They never try to bite or scratch when we pick them up. My mom picked one up the other night and he made a hissing sound and she was like "Don't you hiss at me, little kitty"

Any ideas?

I would think because at that age their sight and hearing are starting to come in more and more with each day. When they are first born they can't see or hear you only smell you. So when the sights and sounds start to come it is not familiar to them and it scares them. As time goes on and they get used to hearing and seeing things will get better I am sure. Just be really patient with them and put yourself in their shoes. When they see you they don't see you clearly they see this blurry object coming at them and any sound you make is probably multiplied by 100 to them so you have this blurry noisy thing reaching for them and they are scared

Also, if your soap or lotion is perfumed, they might be reacting to that, or noisy shoes, who knows!

Until they can hear and see, its a defense mechinism - its a hiss but won't scare anything larger then a bug

That's why I handle newborn kittens from day one, so they get used to your smell and don't hiss as much. In a week or so, they will stop

Thanks you guys. They've had their eyes open for a while now, but I'm not sure how well they see yet. I'm pretty sure they can hear well, because everytime they're sleeping and hear us say something or walk into the room, we see four little heads pop up and look at us.

We hold them plenty every day, so hopefully they'll stop making hissy sounds soon.

Ha, our kittens started doing this around week 6 -- I just figured that they had "learned" about hissing, so to speak, and were trying it out on everyone and everything that they could -- they also spent a lot of time randomly hissing at each other.

It was pretty darned hilarious though... dudes, you are like 1-2 lbs apiece. Even the 5 of you together in an orchestrated attack couldn't take a human!

They stopped after a week or so, whether because they grew out of it, or just got so demoralized by its utter lack of effectiveness.

Originally Posted by Zoethor2

Ha, our kittens started doing this around week 6 -- I just figured that they had "learned" about hissing, so to speak, and were trying it out on everyone and everything that they could -- they also spent a lot of time randomly hissing at each other.

It was pretty darned hilarious though... dudes, you are like 1-2 lbs apiece. Even the 5 of you together in an orchestrated attack couldn't take a human!

They stopped after a week or so, whether because they grew out of it, or just got so demoralized by its utter lack of effectiveness.

Click to expand...

I think they look kind of cute when they're hissing.. because they're so tiny. It makes me giggle a little, really. I was just curious why they were doing it.

You think maybe they're like 2-year-olds who have just learned the word, "No?"

Originally Posted by mrblanche

You think maybe they're like 2-year-olds who have just learned the word, "No?"

Click to expand...

That sounds about right, honestly..