Female cat trying to "scruff" my hand/kitten that isn't hers?

[ethelguy]

A few days ago, I was watching kitten videos on my phone (because having 4 cats in real life apparently isn't enough

). In one video, a kitten was mewing its head off which all my cats looked confused over, understandably. My 1 1/2-year old female cat hopped on my lap, sniffed my phone and then started gently biting my wrist like she was trying to pick up a kitten! I've had her since she was about 6 weeks and she was spayed when she was maybe 10 weeks. I'm not concerned or worried by the behavior. I'm amused more than anything and wondered if anyone else had experienced something like this. I know it's an instinct, but I just thought it was odd that she's never been around kittens since she was one herself and they clearly wouldn't be hers. I wondered, too, what she would do if there actually was a tiny kitten in the house. I'm in no rush to find out firsthand, but didn't know if anyone else had seen a spayed female cat try to pick up another cat's babies. 

 

[amyrose]

Hmm.  Even in spayed females strong instinct can sometimes remain.

When I was a kid, we had 3 gorgeous black cats, a rescue mum and her kittens (we fixed her afterwards).  One of them, Lucy, used to carry around socks and would treat them like kittens.  She was fixed at 5-mo and was not around other kittens, just lived with her mum and brother.  It just means she would have perhaps been a good mum.  :}

 

[iwilltakethem]

Oh yeah, she would have been an awesome mommy cat. My mom cats are just like her. They will take any and all kittens that are around. They arent my permanent cats though just two rescues ive recently had. They would lay together and switch out kittens all the time. To the extent that if i tried to kennel them with their own kittens they would fight, for hours, till i put them together in my 'meet n greet' area.
Some girl cats just have that instinct so strong one little kitten cry is all it takes.

Shes is so sweet though, and absolutely beautiful. You got a good girl there.

 

[meowmmy_aprile]

I have had my spay female cat since the day she was born. My brother in law is a mailman and found 6 3-4 week old kittens and brought them to me. My female hissed at first for a few days then the next thing I know she had jumped into the kitten pen and was letting them nurse her even though she didn't have anything to nurse. She took to those kittens as if they were her own and protected them with a vengeance from the dog and strangers that came in the house. She kept them clean and played with them. I had to put a T-shirt on her because her nipples got so raw from them nursing on her trying to get something out. I was bottle feeding them and slowly as they got a little older taught them to drink their baby formula from a small pie plate. I then added soft foods but they always went back and tried to nurse her and she would let them all the way until they were 12+weeks old. Most of them weaned themselves from except one and that one was a bugger to stop. It wasn't until I rehomed him that she got a break. I had given him to my mother in law and she brought him over a few months later for me to watch while she was out of town. Do you know that little bugger was almost 8 months old and when he saw her went back and tried to nurse her and darn if she wasn't going to let him. I had to bring the darn T-shirt out for his whole visit and he just sucked on her T-shirt lol.