At a time when many of us are celebrating Father’s Day, curious cat lovers may be wondering about feline fathers. Do male cats make doting fathers or are they absent? Certainly it is not something you commonly hear about. This blog post aims to shed light on this little known topic.
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Photo by istock.com/virgonira |
One study in Southampton which looked at paternity in kittens discovered some interesting results. One of the households with a litter of kittens in the study had a male and female cat which were both unneutered. However, when the paternity test results came in, none of the kittens were fathered by the male cat living in the house. In fact, the kittens were all fathered by a feral tom cat from a farm a few miles away – and this feral cat had actually fathered many of the kittens in the study! Clearly this virulent male cat needed to be neutered in order to prevent the many unwanted litters. Kittens can get pregnant as young as four months of age, which is why Cats Protection recommends neutering at four months.
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Chaka and her kittens were in the care of our Bridgend Adoption Centre. Photo by Sue Dobbs |
Overall, cats are not known for their fatherly skills as male cats do not tend to be involved in raising offspring, especially in the wild. Anecdotally, there are rare cases reported where domestic male cats have shown paternal care towards the young. Generally, rearing the kittens is primarily carried out by the queen so we don’t expect many kittens to be giving gifts today!
To find out more about cats' needs and behaviour, go to: www.cats.org.uk/cat-care/cat-behaviour-hub
Hi there, that's interesting! we had a male cat first and have since adopted three females and he is very affectionate with them and washes all of them! I think he'd have been an awesome dad :)
ReplyDeleteInteresting article. Male cats obviously have all the fun without the responsibility! Know a few humans like that'
ReplyDeleteI foster for a cat rescue. One tabby male had looked after another male kitten in an upturned wheelie bin through a snowy winter. Several months later I took in 3 kittens, rejected by mum. It was Monty the male tabby who then took them under his paw, taught them, played with them and helped them to climb upwards with his 'safety paw gently guiding them. In the end, an extra special lady adopted all four as she couldn't bear to split them. Monty and his babies.
ReplyDeleteCuriously, we are fostering an adult brother and sister plus the sister's two 6-week-old kittens for CP right now. Uncle is not thought also to be papa. He is, however, more-or-less coparenting the kittens - playing with them, worrying when they climb up onto the shelf in the pen, and sleeping with them piled on top of him.
ReplyDelete