Cat question

[The Snark]

We have 2 adult-ish female cats, Sea Cow and My. My had 5 little accidents (Gnarly and 4 not yet named). Sea cow spent about 3 weeks in freak: What the heck are those things??? Then her maternal instincts kicked in. When My isn't nursing or lounging with the kittens, Sea Cow moves in to check them out. After a few days of this, Sea Cow started assisting in kitten bathing and supervision. Then yesterday she started nursing (dry) the kittens. Now My and Sea Cow take turns with all things maternal. No hostilities and it's normal for them both to get to purring as they nurse.
Is there a potential jealousy problem down the road? Is this sort of normal for an auxiliary female to assist in mom duties?

 

[Tongue Flicker]

Well females in the cat family (even lions) are known to assist in child rearing as well as protection. Some nursing moms are even known to take other youngters from within their group to give milk. So i guess that's perfectly normal

 

[The Snark]

Cool. Works for me. Other's been insisting they are lesbians anyway.

 

[jthorntonwillis]

[

Hee-hee @ lesbian cats... Unless they are cunningual,I wouldn't worry about it....




QUOTE=The Snark;2283140]Cool. Works for me. Other's been insisting they are lesbians anyway.[/QUOTE]

 

[The Snark]

Lesbians. A close social relationship between two females

 

[AgVet09]

That's fairly normal social behavior. The few social feline species (domestic cats included) will cooperate in caring for kittens. There shouldn't be any "jealousy" or anything like that. Their brains don't really work that way.

 

[Tongue Flicker]

I guess that's the closest thing to a girl to girl action you'll get in the animal kingdom lol

 

[LordOfTheVein]

Is Sea Cow desexed ? Suspect that it is normal maternal behaviour. More danger to kittens from the male of the species in felines. Should be no problem in the future.

 

[The Snark]

Is Sea Cow desexed ? Suspect that it is normal maternal behaviour. More danger to kittens from the male of the species in felines. Should be no problem in the future.

Sea Cow was cut from a different cloth than cats. I constantly remind myself to stay aloof and objective when dealing with her. Before 10 days on deaths doorstep she was very vociferous, meowing constantly. She is more subdued now. Her temperament is subject to wild mood swings, from extremely laid back and laconically accepting a bath to snarl growling without reason. Most of the time she is a lot like Winnie the Pooh of the books, not Disney. Mentaility wise she's firmly around dim witted dog. She knows limited commands as come, go, get out of the room, don't do that and stop it. But brain power is pretty weak. When I put the bowls of food down My always jumps on hers and Sea Cow assumes there is only one bowl so she just sits and waits her turn. It's always the same; Have to scoot her over to her bowl, she makes the discovery and starts eating. Next feeding, same thing. So she has a bolt or two loose.

When the kittens came Sea Cow viewed them with alarm. There already was a close companionship between Sea Cow and My. Once Sea Cow figured out they were cats of a sort she started inspecting them more closely. About a week passed and she started joining My during nursing sessions. She appeared concerned about My. Then her empathy kicked in. They are closer than I think two females would normally be. Very similar to the various lesbian couples I know. The private time is a few minutes every couple of days, they sometimes romp and play fight a little, but most of the time they are very close companions with an extremely strong empathic bond but also respect each others independence. My is definitely a dom but doesn't push it and Sea Cow mildly submissive as befitting her Pooh mental condition.

Too late to make a long story short but anyway, yes, Sea Cow has a lot of dusty unoccupied rooms in the brain hotel but makes up with it with some very bizarre dog like antics. And of course, peeing in the bathtub drain.

 

[The Snark]

Utterly nauseating anecdote

Rocketa Scientista, my other, built an elaborate nursery for the kits out of cardboard boxes. Momcat accepted the monstrosity for about 3 days.
So I'm sitting in the evening upstairs at the computer reading betime stories about >6-1 high bypass engines when Momcat schlucks past and goes behind my book case at my elbow. I hear kittenoise. Momcat goes back downstairs as I investigate. As I discover the kit she has crammed under the book case she arrives with #2. As I am digging those out she arrives with #3. Sea Cow arrives and is completely bewildered. She picks up one of the kittens but has no idea what to do next. Momcat arrives with #4 so Sea Cow puts the kitten down and picks that one up.

Meanwhile I'm calmly observing to wit: WHAT THE FRACK IS GOING ON???

I pick up the 4 kittens and meet Momcat on the stairs. She has #5 in her mouth.
After a few trips up and down the stairs I get the kittens reinstalled in Rocketa Scientista's (<-remember her? She started this!) card board box de Gotha which I had nicknamed Fukushima Reactor 3.

Momcat is not buying Reactor 3. She starts moving the kits onto the top of Rocketa Scientista's work table aka malfunction junction. As it is filled with things sharp, dangerous, weird, and unidentifiable and there is a 3 foot drop to the floor I'm not buying that. I create a temporary urban housing development of bits and pieces of Reactor 3. Momcat isn't buying that.

She compromises by stuffing the kits into a large recycled shopping bag (you will never know just how cute I look storming the aisles of the supermarket with my hand made rainbow colored shopping bag and bamboo basket).

The kits reside in the bag for 24 hours then this morning, kitten mewing at my elbow and back under the book case they go. Rocketa Scientista finally has her dim bulb light up and she observes her Reactor 3 construction was right up against the windows looking out on the porch where the dogthing resides. The shopping bag, at the far end of the room, still afforded Momcat a view of the great terror of her life. Momcat, virtually brain free and operating purely on primal instincts, moves the kits to the safest place she could think of: As close to under me as possible.

I wish she would get the clue as Sea Cow has, that dogthing only wants to knock her over, roll her on the ground a few yards, and sniff and lick her genitals. Darn fussy if you ask me.

Meanwhile, Sea Cow has become rather pragmatic. She has stationed herself within view of the giant wash tub the kits are now residing in a few feet from where I am sitting, keeping a wary eye on both Momcat and the kits. Reactor 3 was collected by the scroungers yesterday. (Eat your hearts out TEPCO. The whole mess gone in the blink of an eye). She was sad to see it go as it was just right for claw exercise. Now she has to revert to the furniture.

Got to keep them claws sharp for the class 6 gecko climbs.

 

[The Snark]

Gratuitous family moment shot.

 

[pitbulllady]

Just thought of something, rather off-topic, but not completely. Does the white cat have blue eyes, or one blue eye, by any chance? It appears that she does in the bottom pic(which is adorable, btw), though it's kinda hard to tell from the angle of her face. Is she the one that you have written much about her vocalizing a lot, and odd behavior, or is it the tabby cat? The reason I'm asking is because nearly all, if not all, solid white cats with at least one blue eye have some degree of deafness, which can cause odd behavior and excessive vocalizing. I'm not sure why deaf cats and dead dogs are very noisy; perhaps they can only hear their own voices, but in my experience the majority of deaf cats meow almost constantly and deaf dogs bark a LOT and cry and whimper a lot as puppies. When I bred Catahoulas, which have the merle gene, one of the indicators that a puppy was deaf was that it seemed to be constantly crying, howling and whimpering, for no apparent reason. I had a white, deaf Devon Rex cat who meowed a lot, and I've seen some that meowed nearly non-stop.

pitbulllady

 

[Najakeeper]

Just thought of something, rather off-topic, but not completely. Does the white cat have blue eyes, or one blue eye, by any chance? It appears that she does in the bottom pic(which is adorable, btw), though it's kinda hard to tell from the angle of her face. Is she the one that you have written much about her vocalizing a lot, and odd behavior, or is it the tabby cat? The reason I'm asking is because nearly all, if not all, solid white cats with at least one blue eye have some degree of deafness, which can cause odd behavior and excessive vocalizing. I'm not sure why deaf cats and dead dogs are very noisy; perhaps they can only hear their own voices, but in my experience the majority of deaf cats meow almost constantly and deaf dogs bark a LOT and cry and whimper a lot as puppies. When I bred Catahoulas, which have the merle gene, one of the indicators that a puppy was deaf was that it seemed to be constantly crying, howling and whimpering, for no apparent reason. I had a white, deaf Devon Rex cat who meowed a lot, and I've seen some that meowed nearly non-stop.

pitbulllady

We see this a lot in Turkish Van cats. In Turkey, the only accepted Turkish Vans are solid white ones, the ones with orange are seen as regular street strays. And a lot of the whites have bi-color eyes, which is sought after therefor bred in quantity. I had one of those bi-color whites and he was completely deaf.

 

[The Snark]

Just thought of something, rather off-topic, but not completely. Does the white cat have blue eyes, or one blue eye, by any chance? It appears that she does in the bottom pic(which is adorable, btw), though it's kinda hard to tell from the angle of her face. Is she the one that you have written much about her vocalizing a lot, and odd behavior, or is it the tabby cat? The reason I'm asking is because nearly all, if not all, solid white cats with at least one blue eye have some degree of deafness, which can cause odd behavior and excessive vocalizing. I'm not sure why deaf cats and dead dogs are very noisy; perhaps they can only hear their own voices, but in my experience the majority of deaf cats meow almost constantly and deaf dogs bark a LOT and cry and whimper a lot as puppies. When I bred Catahoulas, which have the merle gene, one of the indicators that a puppy was deaf was that it seemed to be constantly crying, howling and whimpering, for no apparent reason. I had a white, deaf Devon Rex cat who meowed a lot, and I've seen some that meowed nearly non-stop.

pitbulllady

Sea Cow, actually See - color, Kow - white (tagn moud - all or everything - westerners usually can't get close to pronouncing this), has a blue right eye and yellow tawny left.
Since she responds to voice commands and can hear the most minute squeak of the kids I'd guess if she has hearing problems they would be in the low frequencies but I don't think even that. When she sneaks into our bedroom me speaking in my normal (very deep) voice 'out!' and she scampers for the door.

She makes up for that lack of defect in other interesting ways, After her bout with the poison, and the hot weather, nearly all her hair fell out. As you know, cat's of Siamese lineage tend to look pretty gaunt and scraggly when wet so imagining her is pretty easy. She lost enough hair to choke my hot rodded 3 1/2 horse vacuum twice.
Then when her hair grew back it came in unevely and she had a distinctive Rhodesian Ridgeback look for a while.

She still vocalizes but nowhere near as much or as loud. We had her given a birth control shot that toned her noise factor way down.

Her as a second mom is pretty comical. As right this moment, for reasons best known to herself, My takes the kittens out and hides them in various places around the room. Sea Cow goes frantic. She figured out you pick the kittens in your mouth somehow but lacking the genetic instruction manual she mouthed them ala Jaws for about 2 weeks before figuring out how to pick them up properly. (She's also a bit sore and looks and sometimes walks weird from dry nursing them.) So My sprays the kittens around and Sea Cow collects them but doesn't understand the plan and just drops them off somewhere else. So right now My is lying in the middle of the room looking smug while Sea Cow frantically tries to unearth the kids from beneath the chairs and book case.
Then wifeypoo gets in on things, putting some of the kids back in their wash tub, and some on the chair. That gets My back in on the act and we end up with a kitten maelstrom.

Gnarly. The moment she squirted out this one named herself. She's the runt, the most vociferous, and the rowdiest of the lot. She will tunnel right under her siblings and even her moms the get a nipple.

I've got tigers paws and I'm not afraid to use them!