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From: kanner@tymix.UUCP (Herb Kanner)
Newsgroups: net.pets
Subject: Re: One pregnant cat and two neutered
Message-ID: <602@tymix.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 22-Dec-85 22:21:50 EST
Article-I.D.: tymix.602
Posted: Sun Dec 22 22:21:50 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Dec-85 02:35:14 EST
References: <253@unirot.UUCP>
Reply-To: kanner@tymix.UUCP (Herb Kanner)
Organization: Tymnet Inc., Cupertino CA
Lines: 37
Keywords: will they kill the kittens?

In article <253@unirot.UUCP> liz@unirot.UUCP (Mamaliz ) writes:
>Our youngest cat got pregnant (yes, we were derelict in getting her
>fixed...still "thought we had time".  She will get fixed after this
>litter.)  We have places for all the kittens (mouse is a rather
>popular cat).
>
>The problem is, we have two older cats, both fixed, both have never
>had litters.  One of them is mean and stupid and one of them is a
>hunter.  I am afraid they are going to go after the kittens.  Does
>anybody have experience with cats doing this?  We don't like keeping
>them outside during the winter, and we don't want to lock mouse away,
>she is used to people around and exercise.

At the very least, watch them all like hawks for a few days until you think
you understand their intentions.  Let me tell you a little story:

Many years ago I bought my first abyssinian cat, a male.  He was bought as
a pet, i.e. without the right to register his offspring.  We had a
half-siamese of about the same age, both kittens, and thought it would be
fun to let them mate and have a litter of kittens before we neutered him.
A friend warned me, be careful: the tomcat will kill any male kittens in
the litter.  Well, Sinbad thought that those kittens were the greatest
things on earth.  Some months later, by which time we had probably neutered
Sinbad, we met a woman who had a siamese tomcat.  She suggested that it
might be interesting to mate our half-siamese to it and see what we get.
Well, Sinbad seemed relatively uninterested in the kittens, but one day I
saw him pick up a kitten by the scruff of the neck and give his head a
sharp shake.  I didn't understand the possible implications at the time,
but was sufficiently alarmed to separate him from the litter until they
grew up a lot.  Other people told me that this is the way they break the
necks of their prey.  The only explanation I can offer for the difference
in his behavior toward the two litters is that the half-abyssinians might
have smelled "right" to him.
-- 
Herb Kanner
Tymnet, Inc.
...!hplabs!oliveb!tymix!kanner