« How Deep Is Your Love | Home | Butterfly Lovers »
Cats And Kittens
By peace | April 16, 2008
Most of a cat’s sense organs are on its head, as ours are. This arrangement brings two main advantages: it puts them in the front line and also means they are nearest to the brain, which can therefore receive and process incoming data as quickly as possible.
Wherever they live, island or mainland, cats are bound to take their toll of wildlife. Cats are great survivors. Carried around the world for centuries by people, they now occupy every possible habits wherever there is food, water and shelter. Feral cats need to hunt to survive, and farm cats do it for a living. But even pampered pet cats — however well-fed they may be, will hunt and kill, because that is what cats do.
Normally, a cat’s faeces contain around the same moisture as the meat they eat; by creating drier faeces, constipation increases the amount of moisture the cat extracts from its food. Due to their desert origins, cats also have extremely efficient kidneys.
Newborn kittens are easy to sex. Between birth and five weeks old, it becomes surprisingly difficult, but by the time a kitten is ready to leave its mother, the differences are clearly visible again. The genital opening, although directed backwards in both sexes, is more widely separated from the anal opening in a male; in females, both openings are so close together that they may appear to be connected. It is reasonably easy to sort them out when you have kittens of both sexes to compare.
The regular pattern for a hunting cat is little and often, meaning bite-size mice taken at regular intervals. Given the chance, most pet cats will follow this pattern. Cats given free access to dry food take their daily ration in many little snacks throughout day and night.
A male cat may kill kits. Nursing females tend to treat all males with suspicion and hostility, but some mothers permit carefully supervised visits from the kittens’ father. Females, especially sisters, quite often co-operate in rearing kits. If the nursery is disturbed or discovered, a mother often moves her kits to a new site, carrying them, one at a time, by the loose skin(the ’scruff’) between their shoulders and neck.
Kits are taught to hunt by their mother; she demonstrates techniques which they imitate. Play is a way of honing the coordination and hunting skills that their lives will depend on. The age at which kits naturally leave their mother depends on how much needs to be learned in order to survive; a female tiger spends at least 18 months coaching her cubs before she even thinks about starting a new family, whereas domestic kittens are normally ‘taken away’ when they are weaned, around two months after birth.
A tom will grow up to be a philandering warrior; a female will grow up to be a mother. Two intact toms cannot coexist in peace, whereas intact females live together happily and may even babysit for one another. Toms are often affectionate toward people, perhaps because they make few friends in the cat world. Females can be more self-contained; maybe they get more feline company or put motherhood before other relationships.
Topics: All Posts, Animals, Pets |
