havoc - cats ganging up on each other, 3 a.m.

seaturtle

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Hello, everyone,

Well, my 7 cats have decided to activate at night (normal, I know). They have access to a protected outside, fenced-in garden, door open in good weather so they can come in and out.

Around 3 a.m., I have to jump out of bed because three or four or them have cornered a female in the front room. They are sitting around her in a circle, threatening her, she's growling. I have to break it up.
Then just as I am getting to sleep again, I hear commotion in the kitchen.
There is my black male, ShakerToy, having caught either a mouse or a big moth, and he's torturing it. All the other cats stand around watching.

He will not take it outside. He has to run around the apartment with it.
I can't get it away from him, he growls at me. He's a big, very strong cat.

After all this, I am standing with clenched fists, trying to hold onto myself. I never touch a cat and won't, but I am so angry at them that I feel like taking them all and putting outside and shutting the door. Can't do this because of neighbors and their yowling.

I keep telling myself not to react, but I can't help but get quite upset.

Is there any way to stop this behaviour? I feed them late, they've plenty of outside exercise time. It's the ganging up that gets to me.

Any advice would be so greatly appreciated. I don't sleep that well for starters, and these interruptions in my sleep are really wearing me out.

Thanks so much,

Seaturtle
 

mrblanche

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One hint would be to keep them inside overnight. If they go outside at all, they are naturally active at night, especially hunting.
 

tab

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good advice above and maybe you could separate the females at night, just so you get some peace.

i only have 3, 2 boys and a girl, and we are also woken in the early hours sometimes. it's the nature of the beast to some degree when you have more than one cat.
 

aswient

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I have 9 cats and one of the females is littler then the rest of them so their always chasing her into corners I'm forever breaking something up, or chasing what ever cat is teasing the little one. They are strictly in door cats, so I make sure Lele has some things to jump up on or hide behind, very rarely do they follow her up on something. As far as mice and things, we get crickets in the house during cricket season, they do the same thing two cats will be involved in that, I call them the predator and the terminator, one catches the other (well you know
), unless I have an opportunity to catch it and put it out. They aren't as bad at night because they are a little more confined even though they have the run of the house.
 
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seaturtle

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Thanks, everyone!

I think I will try keeping them inside. You're right: outside, they're stimulated by creatures to catch and an occasional stray outside the fence.

Catnip - oh, boy. All of them except my Amato Amadeus get happy on it, then look stoned and go to sleep. But Amato abreacts to it and gets ferociously aggressive, impossible to control. He's a great big cat I found as a stray (all of mine are found/abandoned cats), and he can total any of the others. I'll try putting him outside and closing the door and giving the rest their catnip inside and letting him run around in the garden until he's tired out.

There's catnip growing in my garden, but a friend gave me stuff that seems to effect them like a high-quality marijuana. But they'd be tired out for sure after they had that.

Thanks for all your responses. I'll let you know how it goes.

Seaturtle
 

zane's pal

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Originally Posted by seaturtle

There's catnip growing in my garden, but a friend gave me stuff that seems to effect them like a high-quality marijuana. But they'd be tired out for sure after they had that.
Seaturtle
I'm told that marijuana affects the same part of the human brain that catnip affects in the feline equivalent of a brain.
 
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