Mama cat has decided she doesn't like her babies anymore

[ohio_liberal]

In March I took in a stray female and two weeks later she had 5 beautiful babies. When the babies were 9 weeks I took her to be spayed. The vet told me that would be the end of her nursing them but she laid down and let them nurse an hour after she got back home. She continued nursing them, not as much as before but still occasionally, until two weeks ago. Out of the blue she ran up to one of the babies and attacked him. She was hissing, spitting, growling, biting, scratching, a real cat fight even though the baby was just trying to get away from her. Now she's attacking all three (the ones that I kept, the others live with MY mama :)). For the life of me I don't understand it. They don't even get close to her anymore but she'll run after them and really hurt them.

So what do you think brought this behavior on? I'm totally dumbfounded. I have two other older cats that she gets along with just fine. Hell, she gets along just fine with the dog. Is there anything I can do to try to modify the behavior?

[IndyOp]

1. Adult cats live alone if they are feral

and they will sometimes attack adult offspring that become competition for food. Some animals do attack their offspring to chase them from 'home' when they get old enough to go it on their own.

My best guess is that something like this is going on with your cat.

As for modifying the behavior - I have no clue. I would bet that the best thing to do is get them into new homes if they are old enough to go.

You might PM Lorien for advice...

[ohio_liberal]

5. Hmmmm....

That is something to consider. Thanks for the input.

I don't think the mama cat is exactly feral by definition, but she and the other cat I took in at the same time were on their own for a couple of weeks before I caught them and brought them in. They belonged to one of my neighbors who decided to throw them outside and stop feeding them (in the hopes they would go elsewhere) because they had fleas, the female was PG, and they weren't cute little kittens anymore. I always thought the other cat was the more traumatized of the two but that might not be the case. She could very well be fighting for food or something like that.

[ThingsGottaChange]

2. May be a territorial thing?

I think females are more territorial than males. I'm wondering if that's not the case since she is spayed and the kittens are growing up? What is the sex of the older cats and the kittens? Poor little things!

[ohio_liberal]

4. The kittens are all males

It could definitely be a territorial thing. I hadn't thought of that.

[superconnected]

3. Auora did this for a while several months back

it was her way of making the kittens not want to milk off of her anymore (they're 10 months old and nilla still tries). It was also her way of kicking them out of the nest.

She didn't hurt them though. I would worry about your momma cat if shes hurting the kittens.

Aurora would hiss, bat them with her claw, act like she was bitting their faces but not really bite down all the way. Stuff like that.

She got over it after a few months when I think she realized the kittens were staying and so was she. I took her in when she was homeless and pregnant - a month before she delivered.

Maybe she got taken from her mother around the age she started batting the kittens, I don't know. Now she's licks them and is nice but still growls and bats them when they start nudging against her or worse - like nilla - going for her nipples.

[meow2u3]

6. Mama cat to kittens: you're too old to nurse now

She's telling her kitties they're old enough to be weaned.

[Orsino]

7. Yep. If the kittens are still hanging around...

...they get chased off. With enough room, the kids and mama can become fast friends (happened with a couple of mother-child pairs we had), but the food competition thing mentioned above is probably at the heart of this behavior.