Conference misery::feline_v1

Are they causing each other physical harm?  If not, it sounds like just,
uh, boisterous playing to me and therefore should not be worried about.
Maxie (is that the female?) may just like to scream...

My cats (who are full-grown and not related to each other) make lots of noise
when they play and sometimes look pretty ferocious, but they always go back
for more.  They get along fine.

Possibly this activity of your kittens will become less fierce once they
start going outside and discover other methods of letting off steam and energy.
(My cats are indoor cats and therefore have to settle for wrestling matches.)
						
							-- Nina
                                                             

Also, there's the matter that cats are tempremental creatures.  Although this
does sound a lot like pure boisterousness, there's a very slight possibility
that occasionally one of them rubs the other the wrong way from time to time.

Once in a while, a couple of my four cats have at it with each other, my
other two, and my fiancee's cat.  No hard feelings; they just want to work
ogf some steam.

Steve

Also make sure that you keep their claws clipped short.  On young cats their
claws grow quickly and are incredibly sharp.  They can easily damage each
other with sharp claws without meaning to.  My two older, neutered, male
cats seem to spat more often and more seriously when their claws are
sharp -- as if they know they have more punch.  

Julie

   Let me tell you about wrestling matches....

   We've got 6 cats now and they all wrestle.  We rarely worry about them or 
make them break it up unless one of two things happens.  1)Gandalf is beating
on the kitten.  He doesn't know his own strength and there is definately a bit 
of rivalry in that relationship.  2)Gandalf is being too rough with one of the 
other kitties.  We usually judge that by the fact that in addition to screams
the attackee is seriously trying to get away.  
   We've only had to break up Gandalf and the kitten twice I guess.  (That's
in almost 2 weeks.) and we *rarely* interfere with the big kitties.

   Unless the little one is really trying to get away from it or you see
wounds, I'd leave them alone.  If she gets hassled enough, she'll give him a
surprise someday.

tlh

We had these problems also (see note titled CAT VS CAT), but have learned
to ignore the spats except when they're happening on top of us.  Chorniy
Diablo and Koshka Tigresa have not caused any visible damage to each other
since they were about 4 months old, when Koshka had become large enough
and feisty enough to hold her own.  Now they are to the stage where they
pre-meditate attacks, hiding in ambush around corners and in grocery
bags.  Sometimes the spats look and sound as though one cat is going to
be the other's dinner, but they have very thick skins.

Cats always seem to be establishing and reestablishing heirachrys, and while
it can be nerve-wracking (and ear-shattering!) for people, it seems to be
best to let them go at it. My vet noted that unless when of the cats was
definitely coming to harm, let them be, as it just confuses the issue when
a human steps in. Both of the cats end up acknowledging that you're the boss
(at least as far as size goes), but still have settled who's dominant between
themselves.

Fred

    Our two are sisters too, ever since they were tiny kitty-wits they've
    scrapped.
    
    We only ever stop them when fur starts literally flying (it makes
    a hell of a mess on a pale blue carpet with black cats!).
    
    Up until now (Touchwood) they've never once hurt each other.
    
    Jo
    Reading, UK.
    

    I have two cats that are kept indoors all the time.  Most of the time
    they get along just fine but about 4 months ago we started having
    problems.  
    
    See, we keep them in our extra bedroom at night so they won't bug us
    and one morning when my fiance went to let them out, our little one
    Lexi was sitting in between the window and storm window (we have
    sliding windows and they were open this particularly cool night) and
    she was sitting in her own poop.  For the life of us we could not
    figure out why she had done this and of all places to have any
    accident!  Well about a week later we were watching TV and the girls
    love to sit in the window sills whenever possible.  Our older cat
    Morgan all of the sudden attacked Lexi Like she was going to kill and
    for no apparent reason!  As we were attempting to separate them we
    looked out the window to see an orange tom cat peering in, also there
    was urine were the attack took place.  From that momment on Morgan and
    Lex couldn't be in the same room without Morgan attacking her, so we
    had to separate them for about a week.
    
    Needless to say this was horribly stressful tothe whole family and I
    called the vet to see if he had any suggestions as to what was
    happening.  He told me that if you have a household with two or more
    cats in it, there is going to be a dominant cat.  Evidently, Morgan is
    our dominant cat and when she saw that tom cat peering in our window
    she did anything to defend her territory meaning she attacked anything
    in sight which at that moment happened to be little Lexi.
    
    After about a week of giving Morgan hormones she calmed down enough and
    things got back to normal but it has happened since then and its just
    something that happens, I guess?
    
    Joelle

    It's true that cats will "displace" agression onto any nearby hapless
    target if they can't get to whatever is upsetting them.  Your best bet
    is to try and find the owners of the orange tom and talk them into
    having that cat neutered  (if he's spraying your house, that's another
    reason -- wait until he zaps the doorways, etc.)  If your own cats
    aren't neutered, having that done would help also.  What I do when my
    Holly goes bananas over an outside cat is to distract her and get
    between her and the other cats.  On the other hand, that may turn you
    into a target, sigh.  try and find the tom's owners....
    

    Could you move something outside so that the tom doesn't get so close
    to your windows?
    

    You need to discourage the Tom from hanging around your
    house.  A harmless squirt with the hose every time you 
    see him will make him stop hanging around so much.  Also,
    if either of your cats are an unfixed male or female, that's
    what he is hanging around for.  The female he wants to breed
    with, the male he wants to fight over territory/the female 
    with.  Fixing your pets if they are not alreay, will get
    rid of the toms interest....
    

    I hope the suggestions you've received help you to bring back some 
    unity between your cats. It's a really tough thing to have to live
    with. When I was a child, we had two cats, Fluffy & Jeremy. They got
    along very well for years. One night, there was an emergency going on
    in the house (w/ 5 kids, someone was always breaking a bone or bleeding
    severely ;*)). Eveeryone was running around & someone stepped on
    Jeremy's tail by accident. Jeremy let out a shriek that we couldn't 
    believe. Fulffy got all puffed up, because she saw that Jeremy was all
    puffed up. They both thought the other one was puffed at them, so they 
    just started to fight. It was really strange that they both thought
    they had to protect themselves from the other one.
    
    We had to seperate them for the evening, figuring that all would be
    fine in the morning. Well, all wasn't fine. It never was again, as a
    matter of fact. We ended up going on like that for two years. Jeremy 
    would have the upstairs & Fluffy would get the downstairs. After a
    while, the cats got the point across to us that they wanted to "switch"
    from time to time, so it was my job to "switch" the cats in the morning
    & my sister's to switch them in the evening. Once in a while, Fluff
    bucket would try to get loose, so she could let Jeremy have it, and
    I'd get scratched to h*ll! It was fluffy that really had the problem.
    we had her checked by a vet & he said that some cats just don't & won't 
    ever get along.
    
    Fluffy was an indoor cat & got out one day when the furnace repair man
    was working in the basement. She was killed by a car, which was just
    awful...for everone except Jeremy. He finally had his house back.
    
    I know that this is not exactly what you want to hear, and I really
    hope your kids can resolve their differences, but I just felt like
    I had to share my story w/ you.
    
    The advise about unspayed/unneutered cats is right on, too.
    
    Bonnie

    Thanks for all your replies!  The funny thing about all this is that
    Morgan and Lexi are both female and both have been spayed, in fact
    quite awhile before this happened.  When this incident happened and we
    saw that tomcat outside we knew exactly who it belonged to.  We live in
    a mobile home park and unfortunately we are not allowed to have hoses
    or I would have dowsed that cat good.  There is a park rule that no
    cats are allowed to run free and they will not be allowed to be a
    nuisance (sp?).  So, we went over to the cat's owner and explained
    (sort of calmly) what had happened and she denied tht it was her
    precious baby.  Well her "precious baby" is never inside and has the
    run of the neighborhood, starting fights all over the place.  We have
    had to break more than one cat fight up involving this particular tom,
    in the middle of the night no less!  Well the cat was still aloowed to
    roam free and I decided to take it up with the park manager.  After I
    told him what had happened between our cats and about the fights
    involving the tomcat we never saw that cat again.  He must have made
    them get rid of him.  Well although I am a die-hard animal, especially
    cat fan,  GOOD RIDDENS!  No problems out of the ordinary since.