Older cats hurt by new kitten.. need help!

Hi, new here and need some help.

We have a new male kitten (rapidly becoming a cat), about 6 months old. He's started attacking the other two cats, a male and a female (siblings) and while it seems like he's playing, he's actually pulled out hair from the backs of both cat's necks. It's not constant, and he's not hissing or acting openly territorial. They don't seem terribly quick to defend themselves, if at all, and so they usually make a lot of noise and end up getting hurt. Today we discovered a wound on the back of the female's neck that looked like a bit of skin had come off with s tiny patch of hair. While not deep, it did bleed a little and had us frightened until I got a good look at the wound and it was just on the surface...

We have two important questions..

1) We are curious if there's a best practice towards treating this little abrasion, since payday and a trip to the vet are at least three days away.

2) What, if anything can we do to stop or quell the fighting until we get the younger cat in to be neutered this weekend?

Any advice would help greatly!

Hi, new here and need some help.

We have a new male kitten (rapidly becoming a cat), about 6 months old. He's started attacking the other two cats, a male and a female (siblings) and while it seems like he's playing, he's actually pulled out hair from the backs of both cat's necks. It's not constant, and he's not hissing or acting openly territorial. They don't seem terribly quick to defend themselves, if at all, and so they usually make a lot of noise and end up getting hurt. I have no idea how the 20lb male is not fighting back against the 2lb kitten, but he's getting the worst of it.

Today we discovered a wound on the back of the female's neck that looked like a bit of skin had come off with a tiny patch of hair. While not deep, it did bleed a little and had us frightened until I got a good look at the wound and it was just on the surface...

We have two important questions..

1) We are curious if there's a best practice towards treating this little abrasion, since payday and a trip to the vet are at least three days away.

2) What, if anything can we do to stop or quell the fighting until we get the younger cat in to be neutered this weekend?

Any advice would help greatly!



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Hi and Welcome

For the wounds you can put a little Antibiotic Ointment on , thats what my vet told me one time when I had that problem with 2 cats .
Maybe separate the one cat for a while in a different room and oly let him out when you can watch them all . Sorry if I am not much help

Thanks... is there any type of antibiotic cream we SHOULDN'T use? I'm not real up to date on that concept... it's not in a spot it would be easy for her to lick, but I want to cover the bases.

If you use neosporin just use it sparingly. I would wash the area with betadine solution, and then put a little bit of ointment on it as well. I would also watch the area for swelling and heat (indicating an infection) you don't want it to abscess.

You can put vanilla extract on your cats, under their chin, between their shoulders and at the base of their tail, just a little bit, to make them smell the same. But neutering will definitely help the situation as well.

Your best bet would be to ask a pharmacist what is recommendable for cats. Sorry, I don't have any advice, but I would urge you to try to prevent the kitten from getting too rough, i.e. by separating him from the other cats when he gets too rambunctious. Our cat and his littermates were fostered in a home with several adult cats. JC started acting aggressively towards his littermates and the adult cats when he was about 6 - 8 weeks old (we took him in at 10 weeks, way ahead of schedule, because of his behavior), and I assume that one of the older cats retaliated at some point, because we can't let him near any other cats - he flips out when he sees another cat, and we had to keep him apart from the adult male (since deceased) we had when we adopted him for the entire three years that we had both. Our old cat got along with other cats, but JC constantly attacked him, making his life hell, as he tries to attack the neighbors' cats (he only goes outside on a leash, for obvious reasons). He's great with dogs, ferrets and rabbits, but won't even tolerate other cats on neutral territory like the vets' waiting room. If one of your older cats loses patience, you could end up with a problem on your hands.

Thank you! I am going to try the vanilla tonight..

I wish he'd stop chewing on them...

He's cute, but he's pointy and sharp!

To treat the neck, just keep it clean with some hydrogen peroxide, and if it seems to be getting infected, you can use some bacitracin.
If they were my cats, I would just try and keep the kitten seperated until he's neutered. It sounds as if the aggression is coming from the hormones. There's not much you can do apart from watch them all the time, and keep the kitten away from the other cats. Once he is neutered, and the hormone level goes down after a few weeks, they should be fine.