# Oddly food aggressive kitten



## florges (Oct 14, 2017)

I have had my 10 week old kitten Mimi for almost 3 weeks now. She is mostly lovely. She is playful, likes being the centre of attention and loves her food.

She is quite polite with almost all food. She meows loudly and consistently at me at feeding times when she realises I'm opening a pouch, and doesn't stop until she's fed, but she doesn't make a peep once I give her the food. She isn't aggressive over biscuits, either, and even treats don't make her mean. She usually takes them quite nicely.

What really gets her riled up, in a way I have never seen in a cat before, is fresh chicken. With most food she quickly approaches and meows at me - chicken gets a very different response. She hunkers down and I have to go to her. When I offer her the chicken she hisses, then quickly snatches it out my fingers and growls while eating it. Sometimes she swipes at my fingers, and a couple of times she has bitten me. She always eats the chicken, but she almost acts as if she's scared of it. I could understand if she was aggressive over all food, or with all treats, but she isn't. Just fresh chicken. Is this common? Does it need correcting? What's the best way to go about correcting it?
(A bit about Mimi: she was the only kitten in her litter, so was raised with her mother's full attention, and we also have a male kitten who is a few weeks older than her. He is submissive and it's clear she's in charge. She frequently pushes him out of his own food at feeding times and he lets her. The family I got her from used to feed her things like spaghetti bolognese, which was obviously a nightmare for her delicate kitten stomach and for the first week of having her she had diarrhoea almost every day. From a few of her other quirks, I feel like she was weaned and separated from her mother too early.)


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

Hello @florges and welcome 

Mimi is not getting "riled up" she is just being protective of her food.

Kittens are often very protective over their food when fed real meat. Growling or hissing over real meat is nothing unusual, and it's habit I find endearing in a kitten. It is normal behaviour and certainly does not need "correcting", so just accept it for what it is. Real meat triggers the 'prey response' in kittens in the way manufactured cat food does not.

I am not sure what you mean when you say Mimi "swipes" at your fingers, and has bitten you? If she attacks you while you are cutting up the chicken, then for her own safety you should shut her out of the kitchen while you're preparing her meat.

Don't feed her chicken from your hand, ever. Put the chicken in a bowl, place it down for her to eat, then don't hover near her but move away and let her enjoy it. If her growling over her chicken bothers you, leave the room.

It is highly likely Mimi feels more protective over her chicken (her prey) because you are feeding her near your male kitten. Food is a major resource for cats and kittens, and it is understandable they are protective of it, so it's important to give each kitten their own separate feeding station.

What works well is feeding one cat on the floor and the other cat on the opposite side of the room on a raised surface such as a table, shelf (or even a worktop as long as you don't mind your cat on the work top) This should be a permanent arrangement.

Feeding the kittens near each other is unfair on your male kitten. The poor fellow should not have to put up with being pushed away from his food by Mimi just because she is more assertive than him.

Don't allow food stealing, or sharing of bowls. Each kitten needs to know their food resources are safe. Buy them each their own microchip feeders if possible. Your male kitten is almost at the age to be neutered, (from 16 weeks old) so once he is microchipped he could have his own chipped feeder, which will stop Mimi stealing his food.

The feeders are cheapest at amazon at present:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SureFeed-5...sr=8-1&keywords=surefeed+microchip+pet+feeder

Just wanted to check you're feeding Mimi as much cat food as she wants. She has a lot of growing to do, and at her age they use up huge amounts of energy playing, exploring etc. I never feed kittens any dry food and never ration their wet food. They are allowed as much as they want, and I have never had an overweight kitten.

I adopted my 2 two girls when they were 4 months old and they ate around 350 grams of wet food a day at that age. I would expect Mimi to be eating around 250 grams to 300 grams of good high protein food at her age, plus the cooked chicken as a treat sometimes.

Photos of your two kitties would be nice


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## Jannor (Oct 26, 2013)

I've had similar reactions from cats I've had in the past - I always assumed that because it was meat they thought they had to "kill" it first ! They've always stopped after a while.


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## Lurcherlad (Jan 5, 2013)

Prepare her food while she's out of the room.

Feed her in a bowl, not by hand.

Make sure she has enough food/meals throughout the day for a young, growing kitten.


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## Calvine (Aug 20, 2012)

Hello @florges and welcome to the forum:Cat. Cats often have funny 'quirks' about their food. I have one (she's 20 now [at least]) and she always takes the food out of the bowl and eats it a few feet away. I tried feeding her on a plate (thinking she didn't like having to push her face into a bowl) but still she lifts the food and carries it away to eat it, even though she is fed separately from the others. Chicken, of course, is 'real meat' so, as @Jannor suggested, maybe she thinks it's something she killed herself (dream on, Mimi!). 
If she left her mum at seven weeks, then it was rather young, so it's good that she has a companion, but maybe she sees him as a slight threat where the food is concerned; and as @chillminx pointed out, young growing kittens can devour the most _amazing_ amounts and you should, if possible, try to give several meals a day (rather than two large ones).


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## Calvine (Aug 20, 2012)

I also meant to ask: are you happy that Mimi is putting on as much weight as she should?


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## florges (Oct 14, 2017)

thank you all for your responses @chillminx @Jannor @Lurcherlad & @Calvine ! I have tried to implement what I can so I have an update or two for you all.

1. They have separate bowls and have done since the day they came home, I would never expect them to share a bowl!
2. I tried separating the bowls at different ends of the kitchen, at first Mimi would finish hers and then run over to Styx (male kitten) and try force him out (no matter how many times I stopped her) but as time has gone on he has started to eat faster than her (likely as a response to her trying to steal his food) and so now, by the time she has finished her own, his is usually empty too so there is nothing left for her to steal. This is with regular wet food.
3. By swiping I mean she would scratch at us with her claws out, like I said chicken is the only thing she has done it with so far. Not even other fresh meats got this reaction.
4. I have started feeding them fresh meats in bowls instead of by hand, like suggested. Initially I was planning on using fresh meats as training aids, but because of the growling and snatching I realised that it would not work and so just use kitten treats to train them, which works fine except I obviously have to limit how many they can have per day. They are very clever and pick things up so quick!
5. When I put the chicken in their bowls, at separate ends of the kitchen, there is still growling, but I try to limit feeding to the kitchen so I would rather not feed them in separate rooms. (Also, Styx is so anxious that if I put him in a separate room he will start to panic and try to escape back to the living room, and if I remove Mimi he cries at the door.) I am currently in my Grandma's house, and she is very, VERY anti-cats-on-the-kitchen-counters. I have to watch them while they eat to make sure there is no stealing (they still try it, even if they haven't finished the chicken in their own bowls).
6. I'm glad this is normal behaviour. I have only had two kittens before (and one was my roommate's), though many adult cats growing up (my mum has 5, and we have had more over the years that have sadly passed away), and they didn't exhibit any kind of food aggression with each other or people so it seemed abnormal to me.
7. Would feeding them fresh meat more limit the growling? I only give them chicken once a week or so, but I am wondering if they guard it so much because it is a scarce and precious resource. I am a vegetarian so hate buying fresh meat, but understand that I care for two obligate carnivore so if it would help de-stress them I would give it a try.
8. They are currently eating around 300g of wet food per day and 50g of dry, over 4 meals throughout the day. Styx is growing like he's a sunflower in a grow bag; Mimi, not so much (though she did put on 300g in 3 weeks between vet visits, so she is gaining, just at a much slower rate. They are wormed regularly and I have never seen any worms in their poop. Mimi's mother was tiny, so I would not be surprised if she is just genetically very small and stays small, The vet said not to worry). Sometimes I will give them another 50-100g of wet, but it often just ends up being left. Mimi still never stops demanding to be fed, even if there is food down.
9. Mimi has been to the vets with regards to her sensitive stomach, the vet suggested that the brand of food I was giving them (Whiskas) was too rich for her and so I gradually changed their diet to a less rich brand. We don't have any upset tummies anymore.
10. I'm not strictly sure on the age she was when I got her - the woman said she was 8 weeks and gave me her birthday, August 1st, which made her 8 weeks and 1 day, but from some of her behaviour (wool suckling on EVERYTHING) and her size I am unsure if she was telling the complete truth.
11. The chip feeders is a fantastic idea and when Mimi is chipped (when she is spayed, which will not be for at least two months because of her size) I will definitely get some. Styx was already chipped when I got him from the shelter.


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## florges (Oct 14, 2017)

As for photos! This is my little drama queen, diva, attention seeker and destroyer of wallpaper, Mimi


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## florges (Oct 14, 2017)

Oops, just figured out how to post multiple pictures.
And then there is Styx, an anxious and shy, but lovable and cheeky, angel.


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## Calvine (Aug 20, 2012)

@florges: Mimi has lovely amber eyes! Love the picture of her washing Styx! Lovely pair.


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## Lurcherlad (Jan 5, 2013)

All I'd add is that if they are getting a good commercial diet you don't have to feed raw meat at all.


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

@florges - thank you for the update, it sounds as though your kitties are doing well.  They are very pretty and cute! 

Are you feeding the chicken to them raw or cooked? If it is raw that will explain why they guard it so protectively - most of my cats behave like that with raw meat. Not so many with cooked meat, though kittens are often more protective with their real meat anyway than adult cats.

Feeding your kittens meat more often may make them more laid back about it, but as Lurcherlad says, if you don't want to feed them raw meat at all there is no need. There is plenty of good quality commercial wet food available these days, which there wasn't 20 years ago. In those days Whiskas and Felix dominated the market and thus many people supplemented their cats' food with home cooked meat or raw meat.

20 years ago I used to feed my cats chunks of raw beef twice a week as a treat, and they went berserk for it! I still smile when I remember how excited and growly they used to get over their bowls. There is no way I'd have tried to feed raw meat to them by hand as I expect they'd have had my fingers off, LOL!

If you need something non-fattening to use as rewards when training your kittens in recall etc, I recommend the freeze dried pure protein treats made by Thrive, Hilife and Cosma. The Thrive are sold by [email protected] and come in several flavours, e.g. white fish, tuna, chicken, beef, shrimp. They are not cheap, but most cats love them!

http://www.petsathome.com/shop/en/pets/searchterm?searchTerm=thrive+cat


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