# Kitten help



## lmbridgen (Mar 9, 2008)

Hi My lovely cat ha 4 healthy kittens today,
here is my problem, my Neutered male is not the father ( obviously ) and Im wondering if I should keep him away from mum and babies , He i a Bengal with very 'wild cat ' traites and Im scared he might harm kitten as they are not his. if I should keep him away how long for?
thanks in advance for any help

Linda


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## Lisa 216 (Oct 25, 2004)

Yes, for all the cats' safety you should definitely give mom and the babies a separate space away from the male. 

I'm going to move your post to the Breeding forum. Our breeders who frequent that forum should have more advice for you.


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## Jeanie (Jun 18, 2003)

I agree. If he has some wild traits, the kittens might not be safe from him the entire time you have the kittens. Of course, we don't know how "wild" he is. I'm wondering about the breeding. F4 is desirable. I hope you dealt with a reputable breeder. 

http://www.absoluteexotics.org/BengalInfo.html


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## lmbridgen (Mar 9, 2008)

He is at least a F4 and the dealer was a reputable dealer. he was always a pet and so I never took any notice. 
His wild traits tend to be how he talks, and plays with water and that he seem fearless 
I kept the queen and kittens in my room last night , he slept outside the door, as we got up and my queen came out of the room he was hissing at her terribly in the same way he did when we first got her. she is a year younger than him and they have after initial few days always got on well. Why is he hissing at her? and when you say keep him away do you leterally mean until the kittens are 8 weeks plus? this will prove very difficult as I was hoping to solialise the kittens with the whole family noises and all.
thanks again for any advice


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## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

He's hissing at her because he can smell the changes (motherhood, nursing kittens) in her. For the kitten's safety, 8 weeks minimum is perfectly okay to keep them seperated. At 8 weeks the babies will be able to scamper around to explore and absorb their 'world' and can begin to have closely supervised interactions with other household cats.

The biggest fear, is to keep the babies safe and keep the mother feeling safe with her babies. I isolated Shadow and her kittens in my bathroom for their first 4 weeks. After that, I allowed Shadow access to the Master bedroom while blocking the bathroom door so the kittens had to stay in there and she could 'escape' their attentions to have breaks from them. By 7 weeks some of the kittens were able to get over the blockade so I just let them run and kept everyone in the bathroom while I slept.

Some cats can raise their litters with constant interaction of other cats, but I think those instances are probably few/far between. Overall, I find it safer to just keep mother and kittens seperated into their own 'little world' where the other cats are not a factor until I wish them to be.


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## Jeanie (Jun 18, 2003)

Linda, it would be wise to keep the kittens until they are 12 weeks old. They need to learn from interacting with mother and littermates. Mother will be very protective, but if and when you allow your male in the same room, she can't watch them every minute. You'll have to keep a close eye on the situation. 

Are the kittens Bengals also?


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## lmbridgen (Mar 9, 2008)

Thanks for all your replies, I never knew this would be the one thing that would be causing all the problems. Its such a shame as my lovely mum is very fond of the Bengal and she cant understand why he was being so aggresive with her.
Ok I am keeping the kittens and mum in my bedroom with the door firmly shut!! My queen wants to come out of the room is it OK to let her out? 
She is not a Bengal she is a bengal cross. 
I agree with everyones advice and cant see any good reason to allow my boy in the same room as her. I would at some point like to bring mum and the kittens into the lounge for the purposes of socialising them to all household noises and people, is this to be done with great care only? 
Im not even thinking of doing this for quite a few weeks yet, but can i ask does anyone think he would actually kill the kittens or just frighten them 
thanks everyone


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## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

Yes, the possibility is there that he could kill a kitten, but most likely he would just frighten them. I would recommend keeping them in the bedroom. If you bring them to the LR too early (before they are familiar with it) and 'something happens', the kittens will scatter and not know where to go to be safe and you could have a terrible time retrieving them.
I would let the family get used to them in the bedroom until they are older. I would also wait until they were older and bring the Bengal male in (controled, like on a harness/leash) for short amounts of time to see how he reacts.

When I introduced kittens to the rest of the household (other cats) I would open the bedroom door and let them come out to explore a short distance in the hall. Usually, the adult cats would be curious, maybe hiss, but it seems the babies were oblivious to it. I always scooped them up before they reached the living room, as I didn't want them to get that far until they were more sure of where the bedroom (safety) was.

All of my kittens have been fosters, so they never stayed long once they reached s/n age.
Here is a pic of Squirrely-Jo interacting with one of my last fosters:








She didn't like him so close and tried to push him away. When he didn't stay away, she left. These kittens were bottle raised by me. There were three.


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## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

lmbridgen said:


> My queen wants to come out of the room is it OK to let her out?


Into the rest of the house for short (less than an hour) periods of time? I would think so. 
Out of the house? No.

For your mamma-kitty, nothing has changed. For your male bengal, everything has changed. You may need to treat this like a re-introduction. Let Mamma out for short periods to interact until the Bengal relaxes, but best bet would be to exchange towels or things the Mamma is sleeping on so Bengal can sniff and investigate and get used to the different scents.


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