In a multi-cat family, what should the owner do to balance the relationship between the cats? Are cats in a multi-cat house
hold really more stressed than a single-cat household?
Let’s take a look at the metrics for judging the happiness of a multi-cat family!
Happy multi-cat families are always similar
How to judge whether a multi-cat family is harmonious and happy? That is, neither the person nor the cat living in the household is stressed or has health problems.
Specifically:
Happy multi-cat households
The cats have frequent friendly behaviors, Such as licking each other’s hair, sleeping together, playing with each other.
There are no hostile behaviors between cats, such as snorting, chasing and fighting (scratching, punching, squatting), preventing each other from eating or using the litter box.
Each cat has a certain private cat space, and there is a place to go when it wants to be alone.
Resources are sufficient, and there is no need to compete.
Having one more cat means more than double the daily expenses and medical expenses. The most important thing is to take care of the feelings of each cat in a multi-cat household.
Otherwise, what awaits you may not only be a mess at home, but more seriously, the cat’s physical and mental health has problems.
Unfortunate multi-cat households have their own misfortunes
Many behaviors and Health problems, of which the more common are:
Illnesses caused by stress
eg, idiopathic cystitis, obsessive-compulsive disorder (excessive licking), obesity and diabetes, loss of appetite Living in the same dense space with fatty liver, nervous diarrhea and vomiting, cat nasal branch, etc.;
infectious diseases
People and cats, cats and cats are prone to cross-infection. There are various types of pathogens, such as viruses (calicivirus, feline AIDS, leukemia, herpes virus), bacteria, fungi, parasites, etc.
Families with multiple cats should be vaccinated in time
fights.
Cats may fight because of illness, pain, competition for resources, lack of socialization, etc.
Diet issues
Each cat has a different personality and appetite. In a multi-cat household, it is easy for some cats to eat Too much will lead to obesity; other cats will be malnourished because they can’t get enough to eat.
In addition, in this resource competition environment, cats tend to become overly aggressive.
Reproduction problems
If you have a male cat and a female cat in the house, and both are not spayed, then they are probably breeding Seasonal mating, waiting for you is litter after litter of kittens that cannot be raised or sent out, creating a vicious circle.
How to solve these problems?
Choose cats that are easier to get along with
The mother cat and her cubs.
Siblings.
Kittens that are not related by blood, but spend their “socialization” period together at 2-7 weeks of age.
Two neutered male cats.
Two unneutered female cats (but female cats are prone to many behavioral problems when they are in heat).
A neutered male cat and a neutered female cat.
The first meeting makes a good impression
A survey conducted by a research team at Cornell University in the United States shows that the relationship between cats If you don’t make a good impression of each other on the first meeting, this is likely to lead to a lasting hostile relationship and increase the frequency of fights.
Therefore, it is absolutely not advisable to let the aborigines and the new cats meet directly without any preparation. Fortunately, the longer they lived together, the less fighting there would be.
Sufficient material resources
It is very important to raise so many masters and share wealth together!
In fact, cats are not as jealous as you think. The more resource-rich the environment, the more peaceful the cats can coexist – at least on the surface. These resources include:
Food adequacy and variety
Number of litter boxes (recommended n+ 1)
Room size and number of rooms
Number of facilities available for cats in the room
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Among them, the most important is the issue of space allocation. Each cat should have a separate activity area, and place their personal cat items such as food bowls, litter boxes, and cat litter boxes separately.
Maximize the vertical height of the space, the commanding height provides the cat with a sense of security, can inspect the surrounding environment, avoid the harassment of other cats, and relieve the pressure of the small room space.
Let cats have their own secret bases, such as cardboard boxes and cabinets, where they can hide and secretly observe and master the movements of other cats.
All in all, let cats choose as much as possible, and decide where to place the litter box, where they want to eat, and where they want to hide according to their own wishes, so that cats can feel as comfortable as possible and feel safe.
About the space layout, you also need to know:
It is best not to live in a cat with a bad temper in a room.
For a timid cat, it is best to put the food and the litter box in its hiding place, so that it can eat and excrete safely.
Don’t eat side by side. This can easily create a sense of urgency in the cat, resulting in loss of appetite or eating too fast, which in turn can cause food reflux and damage the digestive system. Food fights are also prone to occur, which can eventually lead to bullying and fights.
Emotionally rain and dew
According to a number of related studies on multi-cat households conducted by foreign universities, the multi-cat environment itself may not Stress the cat. Instead, cats in multi-cat households experience more stress from people.
For example, spraying too much perfume or deodorant in the home, smoking indoors, making a lot of noise, etc.
In addition, it is best for the owner to record and take care of the preferences of each cat. In terms of daily interaction and behavior, the rain and dew are all exposed~
It is not the cat in the back that makes the cat uncomfortable, but the cat in the back. Is the owner
neutering and safety
Multiple cat families must be neutered! ! !
Only after being neutered, will the male cat not always urinate or even be in a state of tension, and the female cat will not be in heat and howling all night. The most important thing is not to give birth to two, two Three births, endless descendants, cause animal hoarding, drag down the owner, and reduce the quality of life of the existing cats.
It can be seen that if a multi-cat family wants to be happy for a long time, the owner needs to spend a certain amount of money, energy and time. Therefore, it must also be carried out under the condition that the owner does not feel the economic and psychological burden.
