New kitten acting weird!

[lrbowles]

We have a 2 year old male we've had for long time. We just recently got another male care 11 weeks old. Recently the kitten has been trying to "nurse" on our senior make cat. I could see this being a normal thing if our resident cat was female but it's a male. Is this a weird thing or am
I being crazy?

 

[anne with cats]

How does your older male respond to the kitten?  I  several male cats, and I had a very young kitten that I had raised since it was about a week old. My one cat would wash the kitten and sort of teach the kitten cat things, that cats only learn from other cats. It was so cute! Sometimes I would have to tell the adult cat to be careful with the tiny kitten, and the adult cat seemed to understand me. It was so cute. I later read that male cats can be quite nurturing. So as long as your big kitty doesn't mind, you will be lucky and not have to worry about who is the Alpha cat. It will be already established!

 

[regnes]

It's suckling, it's a common behavior.  Weaning with the mother optimally takes a full 12 weeks, even if we usually start re-homing at early as 8 weeks. It may be possible he's still adjusting to not having his mother around, he probably feels very safe and comfortable with the adult male which triggers the kneading and suckling.

This behavior may persist well into adulthood, or it may just stop after a while. My Siamese suckles his favourite blanket here and there  and he's over a year now lol..

 

[riley1]

Regnes:  Good answer!  I agree.