Cat Night Fight
Perhaps, last night you heard a cat screaming. Even worse when they are fighting. Why, you wondering.
They are at it again. One jumps on another, another one pounce back. There is a hissing contest too. What might start a fight? Explore the reasons and necessary tips you might find useful.
Yes, we agree with you. Cats screaming at night are probably the most annoying sound you least to expect. Even worse when they are fighting. Especially when the place you are living in is around a handful of cats prowling the neighborhood, you may even have witnessed that they occasionally made staring and hissing contest before they get into wrestling.
Well, stray cats are not exactly social animals. So, they may get into fights for various reasons, ranging from territoriality to mating. As per our limited knowledge, experience and sources we found, there are 3 major reasons why fighting stray cats steal your peaceful evening:
Cats are Crepuscular Creature
Majority of cats spend their daytime resting, or, sleeping to make best of their night wandering around places and find somebody to wrestle with. A lot of study found that cats are rather crepuscular, which means they are more lively around dawn and dusk. It is a part of a normal activity pattern in stray cats. This natural cause leads they behaviour to be more intense. Then, more likely to ‘interact’ with each other. It even goes deep into the night.
May Not Be the Fight that We Thought
Despite on how angry they sound, they may only mocking. It is normal for cats to play aggression with intimidating voice. During play, cats may pursue, pounce, even bite each other. On the other hand, this can lead to overstimulation, which can progress to real hostility between the two. This is when the problem begin. But in the normal circumstances, a ‘real fight’ is rare.
Or they may be mating. Sex is painful for female cats since the male cats have barbed penis and it is not unknown for them to attack the male with screaming. Cats make a lot of noise when they make love. But cats not mating all the time, though.
Territorial Dispute
Territory is surely one sensitive political issue nowadays. But in the cat context, we need to know that cats also a territorial creature. Cat defines a territory by marking things — trees, poles, everything around their living place where they usually stroll around. Most of the time in a territory there is one gang that rules. This cats colony can live side by side in peace, until…Some outsider cats break in and this put the adrenaline kicked in!
But other than that, territorial fights are caused by various reasons, in the likes of food and shelter. All those territorial fighting is common among cats who haven’t been spayed or neutered. This emphasize how important the TNR program is. Neuter your cat now as time wait for nobody.
Really, please, spay/neuter you cats.
However, even after being spayed or neutered, some cats will continue to fight with other cats. The hormones that cause fighting tendencies need to take some time to leave their body.
Should You Prevent These Fights?
Cat fights don’t last all night, they normally last about a minute or two. When you scatter them, you are just temporarily interrupting the fight between them. They fight will soon continue in another place not long after your intervention. But if the cat is a feral (which is most likely), the cat will not even allow you to catch it. Feral cats are most of the time running away when one is getting too close.
So our best advice will be no, just leave them to themselves. But if you really need to separate them, just throw water to them — and scare them off, since picking up one of the angry cats is a bad idea as you expose yourself to their claws. No, you don’t want to get scratched.
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Property of The Cat Corner, the Unpad Street Cat Feeding blog. This article is available for re-use.
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