Weird Cat Behavior

tech_hunter

We have a cat his name is Mini he is about 5 years old now, he is a pretty chill cat gets along with people and dogs even. So two months ago we acquired 2 kittens they all seem to get along ok except for one really weird thing.

One of the kittens has taken to suckling on one of Mini's nipples. Now these kittens were weaned and eating regular cat food when we got them so its not like they need milk. Mini seems pretty OK with this and just lets the kitten do it. We try separating them but eventually they end up back together. So I am just wanting to know will the kitten doing this cause any harm, will stimulation of the nipple on a male cat start milk production? Will the kitten just grow out of it (I hope, because this is pretty weird) or should there be something we should be doing? I dont know if it has any bearing but the kitten doing the sucking is male too.

Just to clarify Mini is a 5 year old male cat Blue Russian Siamese mix who doesn't mind having a kitten suck on one of his tits.

Siska

The kitten was probably just taken away from his mother too soon. A kitten separated before 8 weeks of age have a pretty big risk of getting a suckling habit. Suckling on clothing or even nipples of other cats or dogs. It's really best to let a kitten stay with its mother until 12 weeks of age to give it a good start on proper cat behavior. Now, I doubt this is physically harmful. But if it disturbs you, keep discouraging it. It's unlikely to stop on its own, unless the other cats gets annoyed with it.

Chanus

Pretty sure male cats won't start producing milk, so no worries about that.

I would say, "THIS IS A KITTEH THREAD NEEDS MOAR PICS" but I don't want to seem creepy :P

tech_hunter

Kittens







Mini

Artreus

Girlfriend and I just raised two kittens who were abandoned by their mother at a couple weeks (or she died, we don't really know.)

One of them had the habit of trying to nurse on his brother's.. genital area. It was pretty unfortunate and we could never do anything to stop it.

Sometimes he would nurse on a blanket or try to nurse on your fingers, which was far less disturbing.

We just tried to pull them apart and make a loud noise whenever he did it.

I don't really have anything more useful to say about this other than yeah it is a thing that happens, and it can start to irritate the other cat, but it did not appear to cause any serious harm.

Fuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud

We rescued a kitten orphan and every once in a while he would try to nurse our 70 pound dog. Just remember that it is an instinct and keep correcting it. It should go away over time, though.