A Michael Broad Blog
There are two hormonal issues which help to ensure that the bond between mother cat and her kittens is strong and that the kittens are trusting during their first few weeks after birth. Mother Firstly, the nursing mother receives a wave of the hormone oxytocin which is produced in the hypothalamus and is secreted …
In the natal den, soon after birth, kittens recognise their mother immediately via three senses: warmth, feel and smell. However, they probably have little idea what their mother is meant to smell like. The smell of their mother is not in their DNA. This has been proved when kittens suckled an artificial ‘mother’ which …
The answer to the question in the title is that you should praise your cat for her maternal generosity. You should then take the mouse from her while stroking her and complimenting her. You should then quietly dispose of the mouse if it is dead. If it is alive you should place it outside …
Not always, is the answer. You would have thought that as the domestic cat is considered to be barely domesticated that they would have inherited the full range of parenting skills from their wild cat ancestor but it seems not (sometimes). I’m taking my lead in answering the question in the title from Dr. …
‘Clipnosis’ is a veterinarians’ made-up word (I believe). It contains the word “clip” followed by “-osis” which means a process or condition. The letter ‘n’ just makes it sound better. It is, then, a word made up of two parts which means the process of clipping and in this instance clipping means applying a …
You may know the answer so I won’t go on about this. It’s actually often a reversal of roles depending on the gender of the cat. Normally the human owner of a domestic cat is the surrogate mother, the provider of food and security. Under these circumstances, normally, the domestic cat behaves as a …
A kitten will sometimes throw a toy into the air when playing as an instinctive fishing action.
I argue that cats recognise their mothers based on the evidence including how their recognise their human guardian.
