Expert: Jessica - 10/15/2009

Question
Hello,
Recently my queen of about 16/17 months came into her first season since her litter was born almost eleven weeks ago. We kept two of the five kittens and she still feeds them irregualarly.
Almost three weeks ago now she came into season and we kept her, and our tom-cat apart, he is not netured.

After a week, her usual season length, we let them be together again and watched them. They did the usual 'kissing' and cleaned each other, and then he suddenly turned aggressive with her. She was on the chair and he was on the floor and he grabbed her throat and dragged her onto the floor with him before started to bite her until she became submissive. We broke them up and put it down to her not being out of season, but he has never been aggressive before, in fact he is a very docile and scared cat. However, she showed no sign of still being in season.

Three days after when we was sure she was out of season, we let them go back together because they showed obviouse signs of missing each other, and they was fine. But, after one day, he got aggressive again and started to hurt her, and scared he may hurt our eleven week old kittens who he is also close to and 5 year old male [he is neutured and though big, is also quite jumpy] we shut him away in half the house for a few hours to calm down. But when we brought him out, he did the same thing. He was going that over the span of three days and then stopped and has been fine since.

But, today - i few minutes ago - they was lieing together and he suddenly got up and grabbed her by the neck and mounted her. We quickly broke them appart. There is no sign of season at all, she is a very vocal cat since the birthing and recently got more affectionate when i had to split my attention for her so i cannot count those as signs.
We do not wish to get the male neutured as we wish to have another litter from her and him next year in spring, is there any other way we can stop him behaving like these? We are afraid that he may turn on our eldest cat he 'rules' the house, or his kittens who he has accidently harmed before where he got a little rouge playing.
I'd appreciate any advice, thank you for reading.


Answer
Hi Nichola.  It's possible your female could be having "silent heats", so called because, while they are in estrus, there are none of the typical behavioral signs associated with it.  It also may be possible that she has a vaginal or uterine infection.  Cats are very sensitive to scent, and any vaginal discharge that could be associated with an infection can arouse a tom.  Check to be sure there is absolutely no discharge from your queen's vulva.  If there is, she needs to see the vet right away.

Very unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done to curb a tom cat's aggressive behavior when it appears to be sexually driven.  It's for this reason that a great many toms end up spending their breeding careers segregated from all other cats except during planned breedings.  Some tom cats are perfectly calm pets, but this tends to be uncommon.

Occasionally, a male may be given an injection of a female hormone, such as megestrol acetate, to address aggression.  However, these medications carry big risks for serious side effects, including diabetes and mammary tumors (even in males).  So this shouldn't be considered an option to keep his behavior under control until next spring.  

Pheromones are rumored to help deter aggressive males in some cases.  This is a group of hormones that can communicate a number of things.  There are pheromone products marketed to calm animals and thereby reduce behavioral problems.  Feliway is a spray that is available, and in the U.S., there is also a collar (the Sentry HC Good Behavior collar).  If you decide to try the Feliway, dab only a small amount of the liquid on your female’s rump, as the product is not actually meant to spray on the body.

I definitely would keep him away from the kittens until they are plenty old to defend themselves.  Hope something works out for you!

Jessica