Something Odd About The Cat

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I discovered a strange behavior of the family pet last night. Earlier, I have observed that she prefers to sleep on top of a couple of unused yarn dusters, instead of the soft and warm nook we wanted him to settle in. So I thought maybe it’s just because it looks and feels like fur.

But then totally unexpected, I saw her transfer from the cozy cloth I laid her on and on to the dusters where she immediately started suckling and kneading them like she was feeding on her mother’s milk! Animal instinct right before my eyes. She was just a few days old presumably when she was abandoned, and I thought by now at more than four months, she’d have forgotten about suckling. And she was purring too! Loudly.

I just had to google, and here’s what felinexpress has to say:

The first instinctive action that kittens perform is suckling the queen’s nipples to obtain food. Guided by her purr, hours old, sightless kittens make their way up to the milk bar to find their place. Once they are suckling on the nipple, their tiny paws come up and begin kneading the queen’s belly. They answer her purr with one of their own, in hours old kittens, this purr is underdeveloped and not able to be heard by humans.

The kneading releases the kitten’s own scent “marking” the nipple for later. This marking is why you see a lot of jostling and wrestling within a litter of kittens while nursing. Taking one kitten off a nipple will result in an indignant meow, and if the kitten is placed on another nipple where his scent cannot be found, he quickly finds his way back to “his” chosen nipple.

Kittens removed from the queen earlier than before they are weaned (no earlier than 6 weeks old) will revert back to instinctively needing to suckle. Bottle feeding doesn’t compare to replacing a soft nipple on a milk-filled belly. Kittens will begin to find other objects to suckle; a blanket, a bathrobe, a sock, a stuffed animal or even your arm.

… Suckling is a way for kittens and cats to obtain comfort. Similar to the way a human baby reacts to a pacifier the kitten will react much the same way to the substitute object.  Most kittens will outgrow the behavior, reverting back to suckling when they are scared or ill. The action calms them down and they will purr as they suckle and knead.

Could our Ming-ming be unhappy? I picked her up to snuggle between my trunk and an arm, and to pat and stroke… but it didn’t take long before she started biting. She seems to associate my presence with play, which always involves biting and clawing. So, back to her favorite dusters she went.

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