Male Cat Attacking Kitten!! Help!!

[Ashleighsarah]

Okay so we all know it's kitten season and I've been bottle feeding and raising a cute little abandoned male kitten (he's about 4 weeks, we've been raising him for about 3) and at first, my 7 year old male cat (fixed) really loved him, and would come up and lick him and groom him while we fed him. But recently he's become more aggressive and sits on him when we let him walk around (supervised) and today while I was out my girlfriend was doing dishes and we had our little bean in his little play pen area we built and she heard him squeal and when she came out our older cat was in the area. Not sure what he was doing cause he jumped out as soon as he saw my girlfriend but or bean was shaking and squealing in the corner. And then when my gf was feeding him our cat came up and BIT HIM! We separated them after that but we just switched the rooms (put bean in our bedroom and let our other cat out) and the first thing my older cat did was go look in the play pen area. I'm so scared my cat is trying to kill the kitten and im not sure what to do! Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Here's a photo of bean!

 

[IndyJones]

Is he hissing at Mr.Bean? He may not know how to play gently with a small cat.

I have only ever heard of intact males actually killing kittens.

 

[Ashleighsarah]

No he is not hissing! Just biting and sitting on him. Bean is so scared now

 

[IndyJones]

When you say biting and sitting on would you describe it as mounting?

If so it could be a dominance behaviour.

 

[Ashleighsarah]

It's hard to tell because the kitten is so small, he just covers the whole kitten so I can't tell if it's mounting or not. He bit him on his back

 

[IndyJones]

If it is a dominance behaviour you may have to reintroduce them.

BC SPCA

Introducing Cats To Cats

 

[StefanZ]

My guess is it was a dominance thing he does. Apparently quite roughly, though.

If he wanted to bite and hurt for real, he would have been bitten for real, there is a tremendous force in a cat bite, if the cat wants to bit for real.


It could possibly be a try for mounting. Some males whom got neutered late remember how to do it. Or at least, they remember it was something with taking a bite somewhere...

So you must supervise their interactions for now. Dont shout on the older, let him know its he whom is the loved resident. But you must protect the little one, of course. So separate them if necessary. If there is a situation you see, you can probably separate them just with calmly setting your hand between, and use your voice talking to his reason.

 

[IndyJones]

Steff also presented some good things to try.