Question:
Hello everyone. I have a little kitten thats only about 3 monthes old. He was indeed weened early. We adopted him from a shelter that rescued him from a house condemned due to hundreds of cats living there. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with my problem, since a kitten we had a few years ago did the same thing, and we still have his mom. (Unfortunatly he died just after turning a year old which was 3 years ago. )

Well, our newest kitten will start nesting on one of our adult cats backs, and then start to nibble on their necks. The adult cats don't seem to mind, and both of them are purring usually, but it leaves large marks that bleed and scab over. As I said, this happened with our first kitten, but we've hard 4 different kittens over the last few years, and only the first and most recent have done this. (We haven't had much luck with kittens, 2 of the four pasted away, the second during his neutering! - which is super rare I've been told. So we currently only have 2 kittens, and 3 adults. Big house run by cats! lol)

Any help or advise you could give me as to why he's doing this, or what we can do to stop it would be greatly appreciated. And sorry for my off topic rambling in there too... I like to babble.

Answer:
HI and welcome to the board!

Usually adult cats will discipline kittens for trying to nurse on them, but since yours do not, you need to distract the kitten whenever he starts this to break the habit. Lightly clap your hands to get his attention and then play with him with a dangly toy or string with some feathers on it.

Since he's only 8 weeks old, hopefully he will stop this behavior on his own when he gets a little older.

I also took in an 8 week old kitten who had a terrible start to life, and she did try and nurse on my male cat. She stopped doing this pretty soon.

Answer:
Well, he's not really nursing. It's on the back of the adults' necks. And he mostly does it when we don't see it... As soon as we do, we'll pull him away and try to distract him, but then later on we'll find another scab on one of the cats necks, even getting onto thier backs now. (I just discovered one on Maxine's upper back.) Luna is such a cute little thing, and super sweet, playful, and cuddly. The only bad things he does are this and trying to eat everything, but that's much easier to stop. And yet it's only to the adults, not Thor! (our 11 month kitten)

And I must have miss typed, he's 3 monthes old. oops!

Answer:
No you didn't mistype - I must have misread! Don't know where I got 8 weeks from...

If he's not nursing, what is doing to the cats' necks? Biting, scratching?

Answer:
He'll nest on thier back, and bite or nibble on their necks. It's really wierd! I'll see if I can take a picture of Maxine's wound that was bleeding when I originally started this post. Maybe that can help. It just really puzzles me because he's obviously "hurting' them, but all 3 adults let him do it!

Answer:


My mom said that we should keep her isolated, but all the cats have them, her's is just the worst... I don't have the heart to lock poor Maxine in my room... She also wants to take her to the vet. We keep trying to put a bandage on her, but she won't keep it on....

Answer:
That's not nibbling. I wonder if you could put bitter apple on their fur, to keep the little one from biting.

Answer:
I'v never heard of this,that looks like some serious biting,be very careful and watch for infections.My male cats grab each other by the back of the neck,when they get the"urge"but never break any skin.
I have no advice for you,other than it probably has to be stopped,the other cats do nothing???It must be painful after all.

Answer:
I have never heard of this before.To me it sounds as if it has to do with what was going on at the house that had hundreds of them.Maybe lack of food?

I would suggest that you take that poor kitty to the vet and let her get looked after.The wound looks bad and you don't want an infection to start.They will give you some antibiotics for her.Have you taken the kitten to the vets to get checked over?

Answer:
My girlfriend's cats do this!! I don't think they bite that hard though! That pic looks bad! Her cats are about 6 months and 10 months old. They are 2 or 4 months apart, male and female both fixed. The male is the one who always does the biting and sits in top of the female. It looks as though they were attempting to mate. The female does nothing she just lays there and ignores him most of the time. Once in a while she'll get up and leave. My friend always intervenes to stop him from this behaviour. She said she got both cats around 8-9 weeks of age.

I think it could be the mating behaviour but I don't know for sure. The male started this before he was neutered and both cats were fixed at 6 months of age. Now I think they are almost a year old.

Answer:
Coppers mom,what you are describing is nothing unusual,Chico and Rocky do this at the same time every day and they are BOTH males and neutered.
It's like a"Catch me if you can"game for Chico,Rocky usually does and will grab Chico by the neck and will have pretend"humping motions"(don't know if I can say that here),until Chico cries for Mommy(me!!)and then he starts teasing all over again.But Rocky does not bite Chico to the point were skin breaks....They are just fooling around

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Ya know..........it would be so much easier if animals could talk!!!!

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Winnie and Casper do that.BUT they don't chew on each others neck..This poor kitten has some serious issues. :(

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