Food Aggressiveness

Hello!  I'm new to this community, but I joined because I'm somewhat at a loss for what to do with a kitten that I'm adopting/fostering.

So here's the scoop!  I live in a household of 4 young adults.  One of my roommates is my best friend, and she has one cat, Fuzzy, who is 13 years old and very isolationist.  I have two cats, sisters I adopted last year who were extremely sickly.  I nursed them back to health, and they are 2 years old now, 9-11 lbs, healthier and happier than ever!  One of them is Oba, a curious and intuitive kitty who is more playful than her other housemates.  The other is Snowbelle, a bona fide lap cat, but also a scared and sensitive girl who is very easily traumatized.  Those are all the pets in the house.

A few months ago, my roommate (Fuzzy's owner) started working for this family business not far from our house.  It turns out that the owner feeds a stray cat out back of the store, and she gave birth to a litter of 4 kittens on April 1st.  We decided we would do what we could to find them good homes.  As the stormy season rolled in (we live in FL), we decided to catch them and take them to our back porch because they had no shelter out back of the store.  We caught the mother and all four of her kittens and took them to our porch.  We couldn't take them inside because they had not been vaccinated, and we didn't have a quarantine area big enough for all 5 of them.

They promptly broke the screens in the porch and escaped into the backyard.  We weren't terribly concerned because all of our neighbors are pet friendly, so we just kept providing food and water and shelter and seeing them come back pretty regularly.  After a few days, though, the kittens started to disappear.  We hunted all over the place, talked to all of our neighbors, etc., but we failed to find any of the three who went missing.

One night, the mom didn't come back to the porch, leaving her last surviving kitten distraught and alone.  I went out there to feed her and keep her company for a while, and I heard an owl outside.  Fearing that she would become prey if I left her out, I took her in and quarantined her in my bathroom overnight and took her to an emergency service the next morning for her first shots so I could keep her in the house (after a flea bath).

By that point, I had resolved to just adopt the kitten, feeling pretty guilty about what happened to her family.  But as I tried introducing her to my household, I found that she was excessively aggressive towards other cats.  I got another kitten for her to play with, and once she got used to the other cats, the casual aggressiveness declined, but she is still aggressive about food and water no matter what I do.  She not only attacks any cat that comes near her while she's eating, she will bully other cats away from all the food dishes in the house.  It has really made it hard to get Snowbelle and Oba to eat

Is there something I can do about this behavior?  I have tried installing multiple food stations, and that has had limited success in getting the older two to eat, but it hasn't had any effect on the kitten's aggressiveness.  I've tried isolating her while she eats, but that's not a feasible solution because all the other cats in the household are used to having food available at all times.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  I know that this situation stresses both the kitten and the older cats out a lot, and I'm afraid that it would be best to rehome her to a single cat household if this behavior continues.

I've heard of food aggression in dogs, I've never heard of it happening in cats. I know you've said the other cats are accustomed to free feeding, and that is an argument I've used when people have suggested scheduled feeding times, and I'm sorry to say that neither of us will ever win this debate because the "scheduled feeding times" people are right. Old cats can learn new tricks, and it is possible to transition them to a routine. In fact, as much as I hate to admit it, it's healthier for them. Their digestive system works optimally when given breaks between mealtimes. Cats that free feed are more likely to have trouble with hairballs and other digestive issues. 

I'm sure that's not what you wanted to hear, but I think the best solution is probably to separate them at scheduled mealtimes. The upside is that if one cat develops food allergies/sensitivities, you'll be grateful they're already on a schedule and can be isolated easily for meals. 

Best wishes and keep us updated :-)

It's pretty common for cats who have known what it's like to not know when they're getting their next meal to be aggressive about food. Especially because she learned to fight for food at a young age, the instinct is very strong for her. She will eventually let her guard down some once she learns that there is now plenty of food to go around and she is not going to run out, but she'll always have more fear about food than cats who never had her same experiences. Hunger is very powerful.

Right now, especially because she's  a growing kitten, she should be given as much food as she wants. Food that's higher in protein and lower in carbs (usually wet food) is better because it keeps cats feeling fuller longer. Her aggression will be less whenever her tummy is full. As she ages, she probably will have a tendency to overeat, so it will be important to control her diet so she does not become an overweight adult cat, but for now that is not a huge concern.

At this point, it sounds like she really needs to go back to being separated from the other cats, because they're suffering while she's learning to be a pet. She will also be much less stressed if she has a room to herself with no other cats to "steal" her food. Don't worry, this is just temporary to allow everyone to recover and learn to feel safe around food again.

You can try getting a couple Feliway diffusers to help speed up the process of calming everyone down.

Once everyone is back to a happy eating routine, you can start reintroducing them again, very slowly. One step is to feed the kitten right next to the door in her room, and the other cats on the other side of the door so they can smell and hear each other. Or, if that's not feasible, take a clean towel or cloth and rub it all over the kitten before meal time, and place this cloth under the bowls of the other cats, then do the reverse. Rub a towel over the resident cats, and place it under the kitten's bowls. The point of all this is to desensitize them to each other while they're eating. You need to do this for as long as it takes for them to eat in the presence of the other cat (or other cat's scent) without getting scared or defensive and then some. They should eventually associate the other cat's presence not only with food, which is good, but with eating in peace. Do this for long enough to make the impression that they can eat with other cats around and no one will be attacked or have their food taken away.

You can also start reintroducing them by putting them all in a room together with no food for playtime each day.

After the playtimes and the mealtimes are going smoothly for a while, you can start gradually increasing the time they spend together, starting with opening the door a crack while they're eating, etc. If there are any upsetting interactions, you'll have to back up a step until everyone can rebuild trust, so going slowly is worth it.

Even with all that, scheduled mealtimes for everyone might eventually be necessary. It will probably be important for the kitten, because as I mentioned earlier, she will likely need help with portion control later in life. It's also useful to know exactly how much a cat eats every day when you run into medical problems.

Thank you for saving this kitten's life. She had a rough start and is still learning how to be loved and cared for. If you hear of any other feral or stray cats roaming around, contact a Trap, Neuter, Release (TNR) group in your area. Hopefully they'll be able to come out and spay/neuter the cat, which helps a lot in decreasing suffering of litters like that one!
 

Thank you for the advice, guys!  It's good to know this isn't an uncommon issue.  The guy who fed her mom and her litter before put their food outside, so spring rains must have made the degree of its freshness and edibility inconsistent at best.  I'm trying my best to convince her that this is a safe place for her AND her food.

I would like to transition to scheduled meal times when she's older, but unfortunately, that is an adjustment my roommate refuses to make for her cat, Fuzzy.  Fuzzy struggles to maintain her weight -- she's a bit skinny for a cat her size.  My roommate doesn't want to exacerbate the problem by making such a huge shift in her dietary regiment after 13 years of free feeding.  Hopefully I can convince her to change her mind in the future, but in the meantime, trying to free feed one cat in the house while the other 4 are on scheduled meal times would just generate territory problems, I think.

Update on the situation, though.  I've taken to getting up earlier every morning and feeding the kitten (her name is Jester, since she was born on April Fool's Day, but we just call her Jessie), her fellow kitten (Bartholomew, "Barry"), and one of my older girls, Oba, who has gotten better about eating with them.  If I stand by and watch, putting Jessie back in front of her own bowl while the other two eat a few feet away, she gets better.  Sometimes she won't eat out of her bowl, she'll just sit and wait for Oba to finish and then eat out of Oba's bowl (no matter what bowl I switch Oba to).  But other times, she relaxes and eats out of her own bowl while the other eat nearby.  All around, it's gotten better.  She hasn't had an aggressive incident in almost a week.

Snow is still eating solely at another food station.  It's one I placed a little too high for the kittens to have easy access to, so it makes Snow feel a little safer eating there.  Her general anxiety towards the kittens and especially Jessie has gotten a littttttttle better.  She sometimes interacts with them on her own terms, but she still freaks when they surprise her.  Adjustment has always been a slow process for Snowbelle, but hopefully this is a sign of progress.