Difficulty Studding with a Female in Ragdolls

Carmageddon

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Hi!
We have a gorgeous, blue point Ragdoll male that is our stud.
Our female had given birth to our first litter 2.5 months ago, all went well and customers are happy with the kittens.

Now I've stumbled upon a stud work for the male, the owners brought in also a great looking Ragdoll (looks to be a Tortie pattern) female in heat.
She has been here for over 24 hours now, at first both were aggressive especially the female towards the male!
Also was very nervous and hiding in a corner, she is now feeling much more at ease with us, with the female cat, but still not getting along with the male!
They used to be growling snarling at each other, but she scared him good, he is not approaching her anymore!

I have two questions:
  1. Is there any benefit, to isolating them, and removing our own female from the room for the mating duration? would that help out to have the male focused on the job and not distracted, although she seems passive mostly unless they start fighting, then she leaps to attack him - perhaps he needs to assert domination, "win" the female in a fight for her to submit to him?
  2. What techniques would you suggest I tried, to get them to "work" together? I tried locking them together in a large pet carrier, but they just sat at the opposite corners (admittedly that attempt was only yesterday, I did not try again).
 

lutece

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Is the visiting female exhibiting signs of heat at your house? She might just need to acclimate to the new environment, or she might have gone out of heat from the trip (sometimes traveling can bring a female out of heat).

This is what I would do,
  • I would start by putting your male in a room by himself (without the visiting female or your female). If there is any room in your house that he really likes and thinks is his territory, choose that room for him. You want him to feel comfortable and confident!
  • When the visiting female is showing signs of wanting to mate (crouching, calling, cooing), try bringing her to the male's room to see if she is ready to accept him.
  • If she doesn't fight with him, but isn't ready to mate with him, keep an eye on them and let the two cats investigate each other.
  • If she just wants to fight and not mate, remove her from the room, and wait until she starts up with her mating behavior again (crouching, cooing, etc).
  • Don't lock the two cats in a small enclosed space such as a carrier. If they do mate, they will need to have enough space to get away from each other immediately after mating, when the female is rolling.
Be patient, it can take a few days for cats to get to know each other.
 
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Carmageddon

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You are right, the female was stressed the first 24 hours, I did not see signs of heat, but this evening, they signs are back, and very clear - mewoing, rolling over, raising the bottoms when petted, brushing in my legs.. she feels confident now.

I think the male is very much not relaxed in this room, we will try following your advice, and take him to his favorite room instead, after a few hours bringing out the female to him.
 

lutece

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Give your male some loving attention, play with him, give him treats, whatever it takes to help him to relax and feel confident and safe in his territory before you bring the visiting female into his room. Think positive and tell him what a good boy he is. Good luck!
 

StefanZ

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That defensive behavior in the beginning is very common. Why, it can be seen as a big part of the mating play. And a good stud will court her... Beleguer and court, singing, talking, waiting calmly. While she hisses, and jabs with her paws.

Keep the other cats away!

That said, its of course important the cats feel comfortable and at ease. Both visiting lady and the resident stud.
If necessary, dont begin with the mating soon after the arrival (and a hasty let know the terrain), but let her land and cool down. And be friends with you the humans...

One anecdotic evidence on importance she is comfortable with the humans in there: They usually begin to mate when alone (owners may look on). But one of the visiting ladies began first when we stud owners were in the mating room... So this particular pair, were there in the mating room, friendly to each other but away from each other. And started anew as soon "we adults" held them company... The stud wasnt even helding down this particular female by her neck.... THAT voluntarily was it! :) But a nice illustration its good if she is trusting the hosts.

The mating room should be relatively bare (food, water, litterbox, laying places, must be there), but there MUST be possibilites to get away if necessary. Both for the female if she wishes; so she feels calmer. And no problems she is out of the reach; a good stud will court and sing, remember?
and for the male: its necessary, because immediately after the mating she will typically go after him, and he will instinctively run away... So he too must have somewhere to flee upon...

The mating room should be easy to wash off afterwards.

AND dont forget, when everything is said and done, to show him she is going into her carrier and is taken away out by her poeple. So he wont miss her and search after her.
They do often gets good friends after the mating...

And vice versa: if they had this more or less hostile behavior before, if they suddenly are good friends; its a very strong sign they had mated when you didnt saw it... Carmageddon Carmageddon
 
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Carmageddon

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Some progress update!
So, following your advice we got the male stud in his most comfortable room, then later introduced the female and placed water and food bowels.
We have placed a security camera to monitor progress.

There was no action going on, as the male is not brave, to put it mildly, he was afraid of her, she seems to be dominant female, and so we tried something new: My wife went in, gently petted the female, got her to relax, positioned her rear towards the male while on the bed, started petting her in the way she raises her tail and bottom, as he was smelling, and she held her in place by the front legs, so he would not be as intimidated, and it worked! he got on top, and did the whole process, for about 20 minutes or so!

Afterwards, not long after leaving, he got on top of her on his own! here is security footage shows this, until someone in the house interrupted by mistake:

The thing that is strange is, that now after these two times that we are aware of, she is very, very aggressive towards us all (not just my wife who held her the firs time!).
We have to approach her with winter gloves on LOL, she tries to bite, scratch, growling, snarling at us..

What does this mean?
 
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Carmageddon

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I forgot to mention (seems I cant edit the post), that after this second time, she exhibited behavior of rolling on the bed, licking herself, etc.. she looked "happy" by her behavior.
 

lutece

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Maybe she feels like things are moving along faster than she'd like, and she'd prefer to move at her own pace without your intervention. Is she still in the room with the male, and does she seem to tolerate his presence?
 
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Carmageddon

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Yes they are still in the same room.
Since then, she has relaxed a lot! No longer agressive, can be petted normally, and seem calm towards each other mostly.

Are they "done"?
 

lutece

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If they are friendly with each other, you can let them stay together for a couple of days and they can mate as much as they want. Or you can remove the girl from the room, and then bring her back for visits when she acts like she wants to mate. She's more likely to get pregnant if she mates multiple times over a couple of days.
 
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