3 Weeks Old Kittens Hissing?

[Vien]

Hi, so I’ve been taking care of a litter of 5 kittens and their mom. The mom is very friendly and good with people and loves affection and trusts us a lot. We’ve had the kittens since they were born. (The cat is a rescue cat and when we took her to get her sprayed we found out she was pregnant at the time). Everything is going good, but the last few days I’ve discovered that the kittens have a strange habit of hissing? I wonder if they will continue doing this when they get older and why they do so? Is there anything I can do to stop it and will they be aggressive in the future? Why do they hiss at us?

 

[susanm9006]

Hissing is a natural instinct and young kittens do it when they encounter something new or are in anyway startled. This has nothing to do with aggression and says nothing about their future behavior or personality. Right now you are an extremely large thing looming over them so hissing is a pretty normal reaction. I always think it is adorable to see a tiny kitten acting fierce.

 

[catlover73]

susanm9006 gave you excellent advice. I had two brothers that had been my life since the day they were born and I can remember them doing the hissing thing when they were really young and got startled. They turned into healthy well-socialized adult cats. They out grew the hissing as they got older and bigger. They loved to interact with us and were never aggressive towards us or my other cats.

My senior girl Starbuck was adopted as a 6 week old baby kitten. When she was a baby my two male brothers mentioned above helped socialize her. If one of them startled her she would hiss at them and puff herself up to look all fierce. She was never aggressive towards them or us. As an adult she will still hiss sometimes if she gets startled. There is no aggression towards us or any of my other cats. The hissing is just communicating that she was scared. She will hiss once and go back to whatever she was doing. She has never acted aggressive when hissing.

 

[Vien]

Hissing is a natural instinct and young kittens do it when they encounter something new or are in anyway startled. This has nothing to do with aggression and says nothing about their future behavior or personality. Right now you are an extremely large thing looming over them so hissing is a pretty normal reaction. I always think it is adorable to see a tiny kitten acting fierce.

It is cute but I was a bit worried, thanks!