Sporadic Fighting - Multi-cat Situation - Advice?

[goddess_althena]

Hi everyone.

It's been a long time since I've posted on here, but I'm having some cat troubles and I'm hoping to find some guidance. First off, I have a 9 cat household and have had all 9 for 6 years now. Quite often I ruminate on how I have more heart than sense. Lets just say its been interesting. As others on this forum may know (or can at least imagine), having 9 cats in one household is not without its challenges. There have been many obstacles throughout the years that my spouse and I have overcome. Sadly about a year and a half after our house went from 2 cats to 9 we had a major aggression event (misdirected I suspect) that changed the household from then on. We tried just about everything at the time to rediscover balance and harmony, but in the end it was simply necessary to divide the cats into two groups (4 & 5) and it has been thus ever since.

In the ensuing years (since July, 2013) we have had relative peace, though dividing a small house was stressful. We moved across country (40 straight hours in a vehicle with 9 cats, a journey I will never forget, or repeat) at the end of 2014 and now have a larger home with dedicated spaces for our two kitty groups. Now we have our space and they have theirs and life has been much less stressful.

But that peace is now threatened by some sporadic fighting in one of the groups (group of 5). It happens at random times, usually in the evening/night, not terribly often. Generally months apart. I am never present in the room when it happens and just hear the awful screeching/yowling. I wish at times I had some kind of recording surveillance system so that I could do an instant replay, but no such luck. Every time it happens one of my cats, SuperFuzz is always involved. I suspect he is the aggressor, though the 'victim' seems to change from event to event. All my cats are spayed/neutered, of the 5 in the room 4 are male, 1 is female.

When this happens I separate them all with the use of crates and leave them overnight to cool down. Generally SuperFuzz is kept in an adjoining bathroom a little longer as he will continue to stress someone out in the 24-48 hours afterward. After some supervision and time apart they usually re-acclimate and things go back to normal.

In terms of damage done there's generally no more than the usual fur flying, but as of the last month or two we've had a bit more trouble. We've had 2 fights in the last month, and everyone came out of it a little roughed up. A couple nicked ears and one hurt paw, which was new, but thankfully healed quickly. I knew right away from everyone's distrust of SuperFuzz that he needed to be separated again and did as I usually do. Plugged in the Feliway and closed up the windows to add an extra boost in hopes it might help. After a few days of some separation and supervision there seemed to be a truce of sorts, though the one female, Stella has been steering clear of him. Now tonight there was another uproar and I ran in to find SuperFuzz and Hissy facing down. I crated as usual and let everyone cool down for a bit then let 4 of them free and left SuperFuzz in the bathroom. They were all fine together. Later, when I went in for meal time and let SuperFuzz out to see what was what, I saw Stella was clearly agitated by him, watching his every move and growling whenever she thought he was too close. Suffice it to say he's back on his own for the evening.

Considering the short window between incidents I feel I'm going to need to do some more serious problem solving. I can't stand it when they fight, it's incredibly stressful and after the years of constant problem solving in our old house I was greatly enjoying the peace and simplicity here. But I don't want my cats stressed and I need to figure out what to do.

Everyone is healthy and sees the vet regularly. I have used Feliway in the past, to no avail, but still had some and have had it plugged in the last month, but that doesn't seem to be helping. There are most definitely outdoor cats in the area and sometimes I suspect they may be having an occasional bout of misdirected aggression. They have a lovely big window and I'd hate to cover it up as they love to sit on their cat trees and look outside. I have read extensively over the years about dealing with household cat aggression, but one thing I rarely find, is what to do when there are so MANY cats. Solving problems between 2 cats is challenging enough, let alone trying to problem solve in a group of 5. I don't have any more dedicated spaces in the house to split them up further and I'm just wondering if there's any advice from other households that have multiple cat situations like mine (read: 5+ cats).

I love these cats dearly, and would never ever consider re-homing anyone at this point. They're my sweet little darlings, even when some of them act like devils. I've done everything I can to make their lives as happy and comfortable as I can as long as I've had them. Hopefully, as with all of the other challenges I've faced, I'll manage to find a solution. But sometimes it just feels a bit exhausting and it's difficult to find like-minded individuals who share a common experience. If anyone has some words of advice or guidance I'd be grateful. Sorry for the lengthy post.

 

[Mamanyt1953]

Oddly, all of my cats have been onlies, but I have put out a call to some people who may have more experience with this than I. HANG IN THERE!

 

[catpack]

My first thought is that you may have a stray lurking around that the kitties, particularly SuperFuzz is picking up on. This can cause further issues if the visitor is a female in heat.

I help run a cat rescue and also have a large multi-cat home. We too ha e separated cats into smaller groups and this solved all my problems at home. For the rescue, where cats come and go, one of our vets has suggested using Zylkene which is a powdered supplement that can be sprinkled on any food. She told us that one cat could eat the entire amount of supplement without fear of side effects.

If the problem persists, you might need to talk to your vet about the use of Prozac or other anti anxiety med for SuperFuzz and possibly Stella if she continues to be stressed by his presence.

Much further down the list and very rare would be the potential for SuperFuzz to have a neurologic condition that is causing the behavior change.

 

[goddess_althena]

Thank you for the replies. There are definitely cats in the area as I said, so you could be right. There's not much I can do about it, I live in an area with a mild climate and most people here allow their cats outdoors, and there are likely ferals as well. I have had one in particular in and out of my yard recently. Looks so much like one of my cats I had to do a double take. I chase them off when I see them (I do love cats, but I know strangers can stress my kitties out) but that's not much of a deterrent.
I will look into the Zylkene, I have never heard of it before this. It sounds interesting and worth a try. I like that its mostly natural and not a harmful drug.
Obviously I'd rather not have to resort to drugs, and I'm not fully convinced that would be the best solution. SuperFuzz is a bit of a rascal, so to speak, he's always been trouble, right from the start as a kitten, getting into stuff and whatnot. But he was well behaved enough until our first major incident in 2013. Before that it was lovely that all 9 of them would get along so well. Afterwards, despite much troubleshooting we had to separate them into the two groups and like your situation, that helped immensely, although it made life rather more difficult for my spouse and I, at least until we moved to our new home.
SuperFuzz is a 'mortal enemy' so to speak of my other cat Moses, who is in the other group of 4. Any time that they've seen each other since the incident, Moses immediately turns hostile and hisses and growls like mad. And Moses has always been an extremely laid back cat. He's very chill and never showed hostility to anyone until then. It leads me to believe that whatever happened that night (woke me up at 3am from a dead sleep so I didn't witness it) might have started with the two of them. SuperFuzz is our most vocal cat. Always crying around food time as though he's dying. Perhaps he needs more stimulation in his day. His behaviour after any altercations is what troubles me. He will wander around once he's allowed back in general population and then he will show signs of stalking whichever cat he has troubled, usually Stella.
My girl Stella is an anxious thing. Never warmed up much to us enough to not be timid around people. She's a cat's cat and is only at ease with another cat around. I've tried spending a lot of one on one time with her, but she'll hide and cry until she's back with cats. She loves my other cat Scamp, who was an outside feral with her for 4-6 months before we took them in (though Scamp is one of the friendliest boys you'll ever meet). When we bring both of them together for some personal time she relaxes instantly and then strangely enough will allow me to pet her endlessly. I've yet to completely figure her out. But with her anxious tendencies, I hate the thought of SuperFuzz stressing her unnecessarily. I tried to put her in with the other group of 4, which is made up of my two original and older cats, Moses and Lucifer and my two other little girls, Runty and Fluffy, but she would attack the girls and I just couldn't have that.
As it is, the separation works very well with the exception of the trouble that SuperFuzz occasionally stirs up.
I thank you both for your support and suggestions. I'm always trying to do my best to make my kitties happy and its nice to see other people who can sympathize.

 

[goddess_althena]

EDIT: Just realized I HAVE heard of Zylkene, I have in fact used it before when we were moving and had to pack all the kitties in our truck to drive across country. In fact, I was looking at the empty bottle I kept last night. I'm not sure how I managed to just completely blank that out. I'm not sure how much an effect it had, if at all, during our trip as that was an incredibly stressful experience I won't soon forget, but I definitely think it's worth a try again, this time perhaps just on Stella and SuperFuzz. Did your vet ever suggest how long they thought a cat should take it?

 

[Sarthur2]

Are all of your cats fixed?

 

[1CatOverTheLine]

.
goddess_althena - Sheerly out of curiosity, what were Superfuzz' raw testosterone levels after the administration of hCG or GnRH, presuming that your veterinarian has already explored the possibilities of cryptorchidism and / or polyorchidism - and secondarily, if they were approaching 5 nanomoles per liter, was the subsequent exploratory handled via ultrasound or via exploratory laparoscopy?
.

 

[margd]

1CatOverTheLine raised an interesting point about Superfuzz's testosterone levels. It might be worth having them checked just in case they are higher than normal and contributing to his aggression.

You're probably right that a lot of this is due to redirected aggression. There are motion-activated devices available that spray water or a burst of air towards trespassing cats. Others are based on ultrasound to send cats scurrying. Here is a search I just performed on Amazon that should give you some idea of what's available. I'm just thinking that in addition to all the useful ideas expressed above, taking humane action against the probable triggers might be helpful.

Wishing you the best of luck in bringing peace and quiet to your home again.

 

[goddess_althena]

Are all of your cats fixed?

Yes, they were all spayed/neutered as soon as they were old enough.

 

[goddess_althena]

1CatOverTheLine I'm afraid the contents of your post are a bit over my head. I've never had any of the vets I've seen show an interest in testing hormone levels. Though I've not felt that this recent behaviour was serious or unusual enough to contact the vet. I will make a call to inquire about testing SuperFuzz's hormone levels.

 

[1CatOverTheLine]

1CatOverTheLine I'm afraid the contents of your post are a bit over my head. I've never had any of the vets I've seen show an interest in testing hormone levels. Though I've not felt that this recent behaviour was serious or unusual enough to contact the vet. I will make a call to inquire about testing SuperFuzz's hormone levels.

goddess_althena - Probably not unwise. I had a split household for some time (3 and 3), and to attruncate a tl/dr, my current household is one happy Family (11 cats and a stupid Human). My little black and white bi-colour, Puff, had an undescended testicle which required a competent ultrasound operator to find, and a skilled surgeon to extract, but it made all the difference.

Unfortunately, Human Nature causes vets who "miss" an undescended testicle to sometimes say nothing about it to the owner. Nebucadnezar's Dream, and all that (Second Daniel: 31 and forward.) The vet who performed Puff's initial surgery said not a word, of course. <Insert uncouth phrase here.>

Might well be displaced aggression, or a cause unrelated to incomplete neutering, but the testosterone level test is simple enough, and might tell you something of great value.
.

 

[goddess_althena]

1CatOverTheLine I was just trying to read up on some of the language in your previous post as I was unfamiliar with basically all of the terminology. I'd never heard of poly/cryptorchidism before. After reading about it I thought to myself, "Well, they're neutered, surely the vet would have told me if they hadn't actually removed two testicles."
Then you replied, . Although the instance of a vet failing to disclose that kind of information is really no laughing matter. SuperFuzz was taken in as 1 of 5 feral kittens, all of which I had only intended to foster (tl/dr they're all still with me ). As a result of this, the 3 boys were all neutered the same day through a TNR program at our local humane society and not at my regular vet. While I don't wish to cast aspersions on anyone, I could see how in this instance there could be a slightly higher chance of someone "missing" something and failing to mention it.
While this condition does not seem very common, it certainly seems like it's worth looking into. I read on one page, "Intact or non-neutered cats have a strange feature that reveals the answer: once they reach sexual maturity, at around 9 months, their penis becomes covered with spikes, called barbs. Once a cat is neutered, the barbs disappear. So there is typically no need to test the level of testosterone in cats. The diagnosis of bilateral cryptorchidism can be based on the presence of barbs on the penis after 9 months of age." Not that I'm at all interested in looking at his...well, whatever.
So was the cryptorchidism treatment the solution to your split household, or was it more complicated than that?
Thanks very much for the tip. I doubt I would have ever stumbled upon that suspicion on my own.
Although, I must admit, I am now looking at all my male cats and wondering if they are indeed "sans testicles". This may be a slight case of opening Pandora's Box...or sac, if you will.

 

[danteshuman]

This thread might help you: How Do I Keep Other Cats Away From My Home?

My 2 cents worth is I would try integrating your 2 groups and see how it goes. I would also do everything I could to keep stray cats off your property ... I'm thinking a motion activated sprinkler system should do it & if you are really evil planting thorny bushes, putting gravel down over all your bare dirt.

If you have to put SuperFuzz on prozac that might help but I would secure your house first by making those strays stay away. Having intruders will stress ALL your cats out.

 

[goddess_althena]

danteshuman I had a look at that thread, but there wasn't really a plethora of good options there. I have a large 1 acre property, and it is bordered on one side by dense bush. Despite being completely fenced in we still get our fair share of wildlife in the yard. Deer and raccoons as well this year. The cats I have seen in the yard I suspect are all neighbourhood cats with owners. A couple I know for sure are my immediate neighbour's. I don't see them every day or anything, but usually once a week or so. Quite often they walk along the north line of my property toward the bush area. I haven't kept a record of our cat altercations, but I can say with reasonable certainty that 95 if not 100% of them have happened after dark. We have sheds with motion lights in the back yard which are very visible for my group of 5 so I imagine any time some critter triggers them my guys are seeing it happen. I see it often enough, but they also don't erupt into fights every time that happens. It's probably only happened a handful of times in the almost 3 years we've lived here and I've never been in the vicinity when it happened so this is all guesswork. I think in the end, if I really want to try and isolate them from outside intruders a more workable solution would be to try and cover over their window at night. Of course with cats it needs to be more sturdy than curtains or blinds otherwise they'll make short work of that. It's a fairly large window, so I would probably need a full sheet of plywood to block it all. Plywood, while doable and relatively inexpensive is a bit unwieldy though, so if anyone has a bit of an easier to install and remove daily kind of suggestion that can hold up against 5 cats' curiosity please let me know!
In regards to integrating my two groups...that's really not a can of worms I care to open at this time, possibly ever. While I remember the days of them all getting along quite fondly I spent over a year afterwards trying to re-introduce them all and it was incredibly stressful and a complete failure. Having two separate large groups with widely varying individual personalities complicates the matter and I've just been grateful since, that the two groups seem to operate harmoniously within themselves (for the most part). Since we moved the two groups have had little to no exposure to each other and are all but strangers at this point. If it was a case of 2 or 3 cats I could see, but with 9 each group gets sufficient cat and human social time and we all stay sane. I don't doubt that there are people out there with more patience and wisdom than I who might have been able to manage such a feat but its been 4 years now and I've long since reconciled myself to the status quo. With the exception of the mild instability of my one group. And all of you have been able to provide such great suggestions to begin with (and much appreciated support) I feel quite hopeful that there is a solution somewhere in here. Thank you so much all of you, it's so refreshing to speak to supportive cat lovers who don't just gawk and shake their heads at the size of my brood.

 

[danteshuman]

Cats have a great sense of smell. I know our semi feral uses our backyard to do his business/mark it as his. I have heard of cats getting stressed out from a possum or racoon in the yard, let alone a cat. So hard as it may be I would try to secure your yard or at least the immediate area around your house. The reason I bring it up is stress = more fights & I doubt it is only SuperFuzz who is stressed out.

As for your window what about wooden shades that swing open & close like houses used to have a hundred years ago? Just inside the house instead of outside.

If separate works for you I get it. 4 cats was a nightmare when 1 of those cats was old & declawed.

I hope everyone settles down & harmony will be restored.

 

[goddess_althena]

danteshuman I don't doubt you're right about smell. Some of the incidents have happened after dark when the window was still open to let some outside air into the house. I try my best to get the windows closed by a certain time of night in the summer as a preventative measure.
As to the wooden shades, it's a 4 foot high by 8 foot wide window. While my husband and I are somewhat handy, I'm not sure we're that handy. Plus with cat trees and whatnot in front of the window and not much room to the sides I don't see a ton of swinging space, but I certainly prefer the visual suggestion to a plain piece of plywood. It would be lovely to simply pull down a sturdy shade of some sort, but this group can be incredibly industrious and destructive when they so choose to be.

 

[vyger]

Well, I am a multi-cat household, at the moment 9 plus one. The plus one is a feral tom who may or may not stay through the winter. As close as he sticks to the front door I am guessing he will be here. He is not fixed at the moment. There is usually a fall neutering clinic but this year it didn't happen so the next chance will be in the spring. He is aggressive at times but no major battles so far. There are some pictures of him and a short narrative about him about half down this page (hopefully it gives you the page ) Impossible Cat
Anyway, mine are somewhat divided up into an inside group and an outside group. They overlap as some are almost always outside and some almost always inside and some are both in and out.

They do get into fights on occasion and I have noticed that since they have gotten older they have become more polarized, or more picky about who they like and who they don't like. But mine has not been a totally static situation and likely that has had an effect too. Last year (well part of this spring also, I lost six of my group. Four of those were pretty young, all from one cat that somebody dumped here and who joined my group but managed to have several litters before she got fixed. Anyway, that is a long story in itself.

Most of mine are females and I have noticed that they don't usually have big fights. The males though tend to be the fighters, even after being neutered they are still more aggressive, at least mine are. Homer, my big male gets into fights with Scottie the feral cat. They are pretty evenly matched so a lot of it is just talk since they appear to realize a dual would end badly for both. But Scottie is sometimes aggressive with the girls also but they just run away from him.
In the house I have little Dora, a cat who used to be my daughters for many years. When she got married 2 years ago they couldn't keep the cats so they cam back to me. Dora does not get along with anybody except me. She has an unbelievable yell which she lets out whenever she gets her space invaded, kind of a back off scream. But she finds places to stay by herself and other than the scream doesn't fight. She is about 18 now and by far the oldest cat here. So I hear her howling but never have to intervene because its just Dora being antisocial.
The one male that I have inside is my self appointed guardian. Him and his mother who is in my lap even now. Snoopy looks after me. He even appears to have a name for me as there is a particular trill he uses when he is looking for me. My bedroom is mine and he makes sure it stays that way. He sleeps on the edge of the bed facing the door and if any of the other cats try to come in he runs them out. Only his mom is allowed and one other older female but he watches her carefully and a lot of times she sleeps in the closet because she is out of his sight.
So, this summer Homer got really sick. The vet couldn't say definitively but it appears that he got poisoned and it caused him to be in liver failure. (This is another long story, but it appears that we had a mass poisoning event here. All the birds disappeared. For more than a month it was very quiet. A very large flock of pigeons that had inhabited a grain elevator for more than 50 years was gone. A lot of strange things, plus I had a smaller cat spontaneously die. No injuries, not sick, just dead. Anyway we are still trying to find out what happened with that.) So Homer needed to be on a special diet and take special liver pills to try and get his liver to heal so he was kept in his own room (my daughters actually) for a month. He is usually an outside cat. After a month of being a patient he recovered and was feeling a lot better. Since he was done with his prescription food I started leaving his door open. One night he decided to visit me. Snoopy said no you don't belong here. Homer outweighs Snoopy by almost 4 pounds. But Snoopy is my guardian. The battle that ensued was epic. When I got the light turned on they were still in a ball pulling fur out of each other but even more surprising was Snoopy's mom was double teaming with him and she was whapping Homer on the head as well. I yelled and they broke it up. I locked Homer back in his room. They were both hurting from the fight. Snoopy hid in my room for the whole day. But they apparently resolved an issue. Snoopy still sleeps in the same place, his mom close by and Homer never came in the room again. Elsewhere was fine, they hissed a little but they never got into another really big fight.
So, how does all this help you? I don't know. But my observations are that older cats don't get along as good as younger cats. Males tend to be aggressive and territorial much more than females. Some cats look for fights, some cats would rather walk away from a fight and some cats will stand their ground if they think they need to. Personality plays a big part of it. It is possible that one of your cats has established an area as his/hers and feels the need to defend it. There is a lot less area in a house as opposed to outside. Outside territories are big enough that some overlapping and infringing can happen with out war breaking out. In a house it's a lot easier to infringe on someone else. I can't help but think of kids riding in a car. Mom, he's touching me!
I will mull it over some more and see if I can think of anything else. It's to early in the morning for me to be more creative right now.
By the way, Homers story is on line if your interested in reading it. Just do a google search for ---Homer's Odyssey the tale of a cat---by Vyger. It's not the one that's the book on Amazon

 

[shesmylight]

Thank you for the replies. There are definitely cats in the area as I said, so you could be right. There's not much I can do about it, I live in an area with a mild climate and most people here allow their cats outdoors, and there are likely ferals as well. I have had one in particular in and out of my yard recently. Looks so much like one of my cats I had to do a double take. I chase them off when I see them (I do love cats, but I know strangers can stress my kitties out) but that's not much of a deterrent.
I will look into the Zylkene, I have never heard of it before this. It sounds interesting and worth a try. I like that its mostly natural and not a harmful drug.
Obviously I'd rather not have to resort to drugs, and I'm not fully convinced that would be the best solution. SuperFuzz is a bit of a rascal, so to speak, he's always been trouble, right from the start as a kitten, getting into stuff and whatnot. But he was well behaved enough until our first major incident in 2013. Before that it was lovely that all 9 of them would get along so well. Afterwards, despite much troubleshooting we had to separate them into the two groups and like your situation, that helped immensely, although it made life rather more difficult for my spouse and I, at least until we moved to our new home.
SuperFuzz is a 'mortal enemy' so to speak of my other cat Moses, who is in the other group of 4. Any time that they've seen each other since the incident, Moses immediately turns hostile and hisses and growls like mad. And Moses has always been an extremely laid back cat. He's very chill and never showed hostility to anyone until then. It leads me to believe that whatever happened that night (woke me up at 3am from a dead sleep so I didn't witness it) might have started with the two of them. SuperFuzz is our most vocal cat. Always crying around food time as though he's dying. Perhaps he needs more stimulation in his day. His behaviour after any altercations is what troubles me. He will wander around once he's allowed back in general population and then he will show signs of stalking whichever cat he has troubled, usually Stella.
My girl Stella is an anxious thing. Never warmed up much to us enough to not be timid around people. She's a cat's cat and is only at ease with another cat around. I've tried spending a lot of one on one time with her, but she'll hide and cry until she's back with cats. She loves my other cat Scamp, who was an outside feral with her for 4-6 months before we took them in (though Scamp is one of the friendliest boys you'll ever meet). When we bring both of them together for some personal time she relaxes instantly and then strangely enough will allow me to pet her endlessly. I've yet to completely figure her out. But with her anxious tendencies, I hate the thought of SuperFuzz stressing her unnecessarily. I tried to put her in with the other group of 4, which is made up of my two original and older cats, Moses and Lucifer and my two other little girls, Runty and Fluffy, but she would attack the girls and I just couldn't have that.
As it is, the separation works very well with the exception of the trouble that SuperFuzz occasionally stirs up.
I thank you both for your support and suggestions. I'm always trying to do my best to make my kitties happy and its nice to see other people who can sympathize.

just writing here to give you some hugs, sweetie. I have seen things on houses with large clouders of cats and fighting, but no advice you read is better than advice from people who experience it directly, in this case. So just writing here to give you hugs and send you good, peaceful vibes.

 

[dustydiamond1]

just writing here to give you some hugs, sweetie. I have seen things on houses with large clouders of cats and fighting, but no advice you read is better than advice from people who experience it directly, in this case. So just writing here to give you hugs and send you good, peaceful vibes.

We are a one cat kingdom so I can only offer our moral support. Good luck, keep us updated.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

For covering your window at night, do you have four feet on either side of your window? If you do, you could do the new "barn door" effect, only have two, one on each side. Just slide them toward the middle and if you need to, latch them together so your group cant slide them open . Since you said you and your husband are fairly handy, you could make your own "doors" (although they don't have to go all the way to the ground) and just buy the runner. They also make wall attachments for the bottom so they don't swing out.

Also, if it turns out that Superfuzz DOES have a higher than normal testosterone level, maybe, just maybe that's the issue with Moses too, or what causes them to not get along. It might be worth trying one last time to reintegrate them if either one of them proves to not have been neutered properly. It is true that some cats simply never get along, but it could be those hormones