Getting a third cat

alwaysadub

Hi,
Looking for a bit of advise please. Have 2 cats, one female who is 2 and a half, and a 3 year old male. Both are totally indoors and get along grand with each other( it took a long time for that to happen!)
Work colleague has a kitten after appearing in his garden and he wants rid. Am thinking of taking it in so it doesn't end up as a stray or dead. He sais its about 6 weeks old, no mammy about but its very friendly. Am I mad? Presume with it being a stray I couldn't let it near my cats til its vaccinated? Also worried about 2 cats ganging up on the other one.
I know all situations are different but id love some advise from people who've been there before!

Nody

Yes on not sharing space until vaccination but you'll see sniffing at the doors etc. Being a kitten it's usually easier (kittens get away with stuff adults would not with other cats basically) and with some scent swapping that will go on it should be ok. Best bet is after first set of shots (and bring the kitten directly to vet to make sure it does not have worms etc. and to verify age!) is to let your cats into the room of the kitten one at the time for short times that you slowly increase and then kitten to rest of apartment. I honestly doubt it will be 6 weeks old but probably a tad older but small for it's age.

Shivi111

For us, the magic number was two.
We introduced a kitten (foster) and my two reacted okay on the surface, no fighting etc., a bit of hissing at first but adjusted very quickly... However, the younger cat (about a 11 months at the time) became very withdrawn from us, we thought she was just getting older but when the foster kitten went to his forever home (we had him for eight weeks) she bounced back to her usual self.
Looking back, she was fine until the older cat came around to the kitten, once he started to pay attention to the kitten I think she became jealous!
Just my experience of this... yours might react totally differently.
Maybe take the baby in with a mind to finding her a home if your own cats are very upset by the change?

morgana

It is possible but may take some time. Nody's advice is sound as usual .
We introduced a 4 month old kitten to our two much older resident cats. It took about 3 months for them to tolerate each other and in particular, kitten had to learn "cattiquette" and not to charge happily at any cat it saw :P (which resulted in the other cats just avoiding contact altogether. Once the eldest cat started to engage with the kitten (after about 2 months of strict separation but visual contact), the process of integration occurred quite rapidly.
However, there were moments when we thought "what have we done to our once happy cat household" with one boisterous kitten and 2 disgruntled and wary seniors. We persevered and are now a happy 3 cat household - all three tolerate each other, and the kitten and the eldest (female) cat are even friendly towards each other. I believe, in the end the kitten has has a positive effect on the eldest female .
We also used Feliway for a while which seemed to help.

alwaysadub

Thanks for the advice. We decided against it in the end. Wouldn't have enough time to give it at the minute. The cuteness of a kitten worked its charm anyway and work mate has decided to keep him