Hello everyone,
Been a while since I was here!! But yeah, I have a really bad problem with the cats at the moment
We got a new kitten, beautiful boy, named Leo (ginger and white) at 9 weeks of age. He came into our home and didn't seem weaned. I contacted his previous owners and they said to try him on biscuits (which he did eat a little of). I gave him kitten milk as well which he seemed to enjoy.
Then, to our surprise, our 8 month old tortie female called Poppy seemed to start mothering him. It began with her answering his meows and she would go up to him and meow with him and making a purping sound (if you know what I mean!). She then started to try and pick him up at the scruff and would move him to a bed in my room.
Then, he started suckling on her and to start with, we thought it was a beautiful bond and it was really sweet. We searched it online and apparently it is popular and known as 'dry nursing'. However, nearly 3 weeks on, he is still doing it, and her nipple is EXTREMELY sore. He seems to have one in particular that he always goes to. Seriously, I have no idea why she still lets him do it. Her nipple is really enlarged, red and VERY sore. I can't even explain how horrible it looks, it even looks like it bleeds sometimes.
We try and seperate them as much as we can, but we don't want to do further damage to her nipple by tugging at it, and we can't watch them all the time. He does not need to be doing it anymore, at first it was a comfort thing, now it is just silly.
Can anyone please give me any advice? I would really appreciate it, i'm at the end of my tether now and considering re-homing him to get rid of the problem, which I really don't want to have to do
Please help me
Been a while since I was here!! But yeah, I have a really bad problem with the cats at the moment
We got a new kitten, beautiful boy, named Leo (ginger and white) at 9 weeks of age. He came into our home and didn't seem weaned. I contacted his previous owners and they said to try him on biscuits (which he did eat a little of). I gave him kitten milk as well which he seemed to enjoy.
Then, to our surprise, our 8 month old tortie female called Poppy seemed to start mothering him. It began with her answering his meows and she would go up to him and meow with him and making a purping sound (if you know what I mean!). She then started to try and pick him up at the scruff and would move him to a bed in my room.
Then, he started suckling on her
and to start with, we thought it was a beautiful bond and it was really sweet. We searched it online and apparently it is popular and known as 'dry nursing'. However, nearly 3 weeks on, he is still doing it, and her nipple is EXTREMELY sore. He seems to have one in particular that he always goes to. Seriously, I have no idea why she still lets him do it. Her nipple is really enlarged, red and VERY sore. I can't even explain how horrible it looks, it even looks like it bleeds sometimes.We try and seperate them as much as we can, but we don't want to do further damage to her nipple by tugging at it, and we can't watch them all the time. He does not need to be doing it anymore, at first it was a comfort thing, now it is just silly.
Can anyone please give me any advice? I would really appreciate it, i'm at the end of my tether now and considering re-homing him to get rid of the problem, which I really don't want to have to do
Please help me
)
