The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: Ghdp on November 12, 2017, 05:12:26 pm
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Hi, as in title.
A stray kitten has moved from the hedge in the lane outside into our home. (Kittens taking up residence in our hedge is a fairly regular event as there is a sizeable semi feral population of cats living nearby. ) We have allowed this one in and we think he now owns us. We estimate he is now about 12 weeks old. He has settled well and is a happy little chap. He also has caught at least one mouse to our knowledge so it bodes well- unless you are a mouse.
He has taken to our good natured bitch rather too well and over the last couple of days will get into her basket and start suckling. The dog has not ever had pups. She looks resigned to this and certainly is not indicating that she objects. We are concerned how to stop this as one of her teats is looking a bit red.
We do separate them but the cat sneaks back.
Do we just ignore it??
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I would just ignore it. Put some sudocrem on the sore teat - this will help heal the teat and will taste sufficiently unpleasant that the kitten will go to a different one. If you really want to stop it, you could get the kitten a soft toy with suckable fur, which might distract it, especially if you rubbed it on the dog first so it picked up her smell.
We once had a cat which loved to suckle runt piglets in front of the AGA, We also had a siamese cat which started suckling from an older cat when we first got her. She continued the behaviour into adulthood, even once both queens had kittens at around the same time, so siamese suckled from older cat, while older cat's kittens joined in, and the siamese's kittens were suckling her. When the siamese disappeared for a few days, the older cat fed both lots of kittens.
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Thanks FW. I have tried the cream and will see how it goes. Your siamese story is great :)