Sudden Aggression Towards Brother?

[aliceneko]

I've been noticing lately that Toffee has a new strategy when eating. He will eat some of his, and then go to Fudge's part of the bowl, but then when Fudge tries to eat his food, Toffee growls very aggressively at him and sometimes baffs him with his paws out of the way, ending up with us having to take the bowl away from Toffee once he has eaten so that Fudge can still get a fair amount of food. Toffee is also quite possessive of the toys and scratching posts; we have two that were meant to be sharing posts but Toffee has assigned Fudge to the other one. He won't let Fudge play with the wand toys either.

They're due to have their first outdoor experience so we think that will do them some good as they both need some time away from each other. We're looking into separate bowls but since they were semi-feral, they don't like eating outside of their cage (though they hardly use the cage for anything else anymore).

Does anyone have some general advice or tips to help curb the aggression?

 

[susanm9006]

I don’t know that it is aggression as much as determining who is dominant between the two, and clearly Toffee is telling his brother that he is the boss and entitled to everything, including the food. In the wild he would probably eat first and other cats would eat after him. I think that this will be the order of things regardless of what you do, but I think you do want to try feeding Fudge in a different room than his brother.

I assume they have both been neutered already?

 

[danteshuman]

A agree with susanm9006 . I would try feeding them in different rooms with a door between them for 20 minutes or however long it takes Fudge to eat ... plus a few minutes. I would expect Fudge to run in & lick his brother's plate clean though as soon as you open the door. With my boys they get wet food once a day & freefeed dry food. My bully/wants to be dominate cat, eats first then my other cat. Since in their case Dante only eats a few bites & it is more treat than necessary substance I don't sweat it much. If it was for nutrition a door between my bully & my other's cat food would be necessary. https://thecatsite.com/members/susanm9006.42031/

 

[danteshuman]

Ooops sorry I mixed up their names. I meant I would expect Toffee to run in & eat Fudge's leftovers the first chance he gets when you open the door.

 

[aliceneko]

Thank you both for your replies - we're going to see if the different rooms trick works. I should have noted (can't remember if I did) that they are currently eating from a joint bowl but we have got them two bowls each too as we intended them to eat separately when they were a bit older, but we'll start prematurely.