I’ve resisted posting this because everyone was going to ask for pictures, and I don’t have any way to post any right now. So take my word for it – the kitten is unbearably cute and adorable, a handful of gray-and-wite-striped fury. Only Clarence has agreed to play with her, and she’s gone beyond even his appetite for wrestling.
Here’s the problem – although the kitten should have been old enough to leave its mother, and is eating normal food, she still seems to feel a need to nurse, or something. She’ll go up to Pepper Mill (the acknowledged “Momcat” and Alpha Female) and “suckle” at her neck or ear. Sometimes she’ll do it to me. She’ll lick repeatedly and possibly suck, even though there’s no nipple and (at least so far) no milk.
I’ve never heard of this behavior before. Anyone else?
If it’s a brand-new-in-your-house kitty, it may be that it’s “reverting”. I don’t know much about kitten behaviour, but human kids often behave in a way that they weren’t behaving any more in response to a big change. Looking for security and attention, I guess.
If it’s that, should outgrow it once she feels at home.
Nothing unusual about that at all. Just a behavior some cats never lose. Just like ‘making muffins’, as some people call the kneading motion cats sometimes make with their paws. That’s an action they used as kittens to stimulate milk production in momma kitty. I used to have a cat who wanted to suckle something so bad, she’d roll onto her back, curl up and suck on her own stomach. Was a little gross honestly, but she loved it.
One of my dogs does the same thing. She was taken away from her mother and dumped at the pound immediately after birth-- I don’t think she ever got a chance to nurse. As a puppy, she would climb up on our chests and suck on our earlobes. She still does it today but not as frequently. She also sticks her head under the belly of our older female dog as if looking for a teat.
Don’t want to resurrect a zombie, but I figure it’s only been a month, and I started the original thread, and this is on the same topic.
The kitten, Hestia, is still suckling on earlobes, only now it’s mainly MilliCal’s (although she got me again last night). MilliCal wants to tell you about it, so here she is:
Hestia is now 3 months old,and is suckling my ear even more!She does it right after I go to bed,in the middle of the night,and early in the morning.I pull her away but she just keeps getting back on !
The way to tell if there’s a kitten wanting to suck on your ear is if she’s purring madly, and she’s meowing.
Get her an extra fuzzy stuffed animal, maybe? My friend had this old stuffed sheepdog that she had had since she was a kid and one of her cats used to insist on nursing it. Cutest thing you ever saw.
My three-year old ginger tabby does the same thing. Does your cat also “knead” the area where it is sucking, trying to get the milk near the teet? Cause let me tell ya, that’s a treat if they keep it up after they bulk up to thirteen pounds.
My daughter rescued an orphaned feral kitten, and bottle fed him. I think that we weaned him a bit too early. He’s six years old now, and he will still occasionally nurse and knead on various items, usually cloth. For instance, the quilt, the sheet, my daughter’s tshirt while she’s wearing it…
Yup – she’ll knead as she sucks. Did that to me just the other night.
Hestia’s sucking on MilliCal’s ear got her up twice last night (well after she wrote the above), once at 4 AM and once at 5 AM, and she called for us to get the kitten off her. Pepper Mill said that it’s about time she de-kittened herself.