Kitten does not meow

[Familare]

I fostered (from the SPCA) two one-day-old kittens whose mother had died. My spouse and I bottle fed them and eventually weaned them over to solid food. They were neutered and dewormed as per schedule. While they were a few weeks old, they would meow loudly when they wanted to be fed--which was every two hours at the beginning. I could keep only one because the other one was adopted before I could claim it. We have two older cats and one of them (male) immediately "adopted" them. He would wash them, play, and shared his food with them. He snuggled with them at nap time.

Now he is 11 weeks old and does not meow at all. He will climb up my pants legs to let me know he's hungry, but never meow. The only time I heard him meow was when I closed the door to laundry room and left him accidentally inside.

I can tell he is not deaf because he reacts to his name and other noises.

As a previous owner of two Siamese cats, I find this behavior odd. Is this OK?

 

[Kieka]

Yes, not a problem.

Cats don't verbally communicate very much with other cats. Kittens to their moms, territory disputes, and a few other instances are the exception. Some cats like to "talk", like Siamese, while others learn to "talk" because it gets a reaction from their humans that they wwant. Kind of a "If I meow long and loud, I get a treat" logic when from the human side the treat is a way to shut up the loud cat. If a kitten or cat is happy and having all their needs met, they don't really have a need to meow or make very much noise.

I have three cats. My boy is a talker and if I talk back he quiets down quicker. He is just loud in everything though. My girl barely ever meows, she would rather make a door knock into a wall, lean into a cabinet to make it rattle or stand on my off balance scale to make it tap the floor then meow for attention. She does occassionally does meow but I am more likely to hear her growl or hiss at the boys then hear her meow (not because the boys are that annoying, but because she meows that infrequently). She does make a rattling/croaking meow when she does meow which really confused my vet the first time she heard it. My Moms cat, the third in our house, was a bottle baby and he makes this high pitch meow only when he wants to take a nap or have someone open a door. But he first tries to get their attention by weaving around legs before he resorts to meowing.

All three grew up in the same house and we really do a lot by visual cues and respond to the cats visual cues. So the cats have all learned they don't have to meow for attention or results, so they generally don't. Even my talker makes noise not for anything outside of the reaction of someone talking back to him to acknowledge him or recognize your acknowledgement.

It makes sense that verbal sounds aren't common with cats. They are predator and prey naturally. And their predator role is generally a solo ambush hunter. Making noise to bring attention to themselves would either scare off prey or alert predators to their presences.

 

[vince]

Yes, it's okay. Some cats don't meow or only very little. I have one that I got as an adult from the Humane Society that didn't talk, but he learned from my other cat. We're the ones that get them to talking, as meowing doesn't really benefit them in the wild.