Cats are lovely

Relationship between mother cat and her kitten is very beautiful .The mother cat will not leave her kittens until the second day after the birth. She spends the most time with them until their fourth-fifth week of life, after that she will rest more on her own. During the first weeks of life the kittens contact with their mother is governed above all by milk. Later on it is the kittens’ need of comfort that takes this role. The mother cat will adjust her behaviour to the kittens’ need during the first time as the kittens otherwise stand a risk of dying. Thus the mother cat has to adjust her activity day and night to the activity of the kittens. The day and night activity of the kittens is divided this way: The kittens are active when there is light (daylight) during 53 % of the time period and active when it is dark during 47 % of the same time period. This remains unchanged until the kittens reach the age of six weeks. The mother cat lets herself be involved in more games if she only has one kitten than if she has several kittens that can play with each other.

It takes about four weeks from birth for the motoric and sensory skills of the kitten to develop. When the kittens have started to move around more, they also begin to take more initiative to interact with both their mother and with their littermates. They also start to play and to rub themselves against their mother. They get more sensible to external stimuli and when they are six weeks old they start to show the response of an adult cat to visual and olfactory social stimuli.

When the kittens are about four weeks old, the mother cat begins to take home preys to them, this is a signal that weaning has commenced. During the following five weeks the mother cat plays an important role in developing the hunting behaviour of the kittens. At the age of about seven-eight weeks, the playing behaviour of kittens is dramatically changed and the frequency of playing with inanimate objects is raised.

There is a risk for kittens that are separated from their mother or other adult cats much earlier than normally, to later in life develop different types of behaviour disturbances, both emotional and psychological. They will often turn afraid and aggressvive towards other cats and humans.