Advice on our 3 cats please

Hi All

Love the site!

We have 3 cats, all under 6 months old. We got 1 seperate to the other 2. The 1 we got seperateis a boy, and we have 1 other boy, and 1 girl.

Now, the oldest boy (that we got 1st), keeps licking the back of the girls neck, how do we know if that means hes trying to "mate" with her? we dont want a 4 month old baby girl to have kittens!!!

Also, how do we stop kittens from running up the curtains........lol

Thanks

Matt

They are old enough to mate and you need to get them neutered and spayed asap.

Yes all three kitties should be neutered and spayed as soon as you can. The female in heat will crouch down on her fore legs and "cry" a lot. She will be extra friendly and crave attention. It is best to get the female spayed before she goes into heat as this would cause the two male cats to attack each other causing you an enormous vet bill for bites, clawings, and the usual absesses on both males.

To keep kitties from climbing the curtains I would recomend giving them something else to climb on. Cats love to look down on their surroundings from the highest vantage point. You can spray the curtains with a citrus air freshener to deter them from climbing as long as they have something else to use instead.

once i had a female kitten who had babies at 5 months old. and she was not ready!
Keep your female seperate from the two boys untill you neuter her please.

It might be an idea to buy a cat tree, or you can use an old matris and stack it on the side so the cat can climb up and onto the waldrobe.
This is what i have for my cat untill i move and buy a cat tree.
ALl the best

Fran

Welcome to TCS.

I echo what the others have already said. As a person who experienced one litter of kittens before my cat was spayed--take the advice! Kittens are cute, but like most babies, they take a lot of care. Plus, shelters are full of unwanted cats already...

They are definitely old enough enough to be neutered and spayed. That's the only way to prevent unwanted litters of kittens. Kittens can and do reach sexual maturity as early as 4 months. I myself had one kitten that did that.

Unfortunately at the time the vet refused to spay until she underwent her first heat cycle. I was nevertheless furious as a heat cycle places a large amount of stress on a female cat, and in this case completely unnecessary.

Also during a heat cycle, the personality of your cat may change. Rather than choosing to stay indoors, she may want to bolt out of the door in an effort to get mated, however in your case, she may not need to.

I cannot stress the importance enough of neutering and spaying kittens and cats when one is not a registered breeder.

Your three kittens will need something of their own to climb on such as a cat tree or cat condo. Not to mention something to scratch as well. Scratching is a natural instinct for kittens and cats. And be prepared to experiment, some cats prefer particular materials to scratch on. The most common materials out there include, sisal rope, carpet, and wood.

As for climbing up the curtains, you could try washing the curtains in a citrus scented laundry powder/detergent. What a friend of mine actually did was wash her curtains and lounge fabric in dishwashing detergent that was citrus based or scented. Cats generally do not like citrus scents and will stay away.

Discourage the kittens from playing there in the first place by providing toys, (again be prepared to experiment as well), whether they be toy mice, feathers, various other stuffed toys, balls, etc or even the cardboard box that everything came from in another area of the house/room.

Also have a few toys on hand. When they do approach the curtains to play, throw a toy past them or just out of their reach to distract them from the curtains and encourage them to play with the toy. Kittens are easy to distract.

You could also place helium balloons tied to a weight like a can of beans or a book under/near the curtains where the kittens play. A sudden movement of the helium balloons towards them while they play may frighten them away. However this isn't such a good idea if this window is where they watch the world go by from the inside.

In this case, revert back to the toys.

If you do use a spray bottle. Use only water. And only spray somewhere near the kitten, not at the kitten. Use it as a distraction device, not a punishment device. Kittens and cats do not respond well to punishment. Rather, they need to be shown a better alternative.

Good luck and welcome to TheCatSite, (TCS).