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.
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.