Manx Cats Make Wonderful Fathers!

I have been fortunate to have recently come to know Manx Cats.  I had sadly lost my previous beautiful pair of orange cats to the wilds and was in need of some more mousers and fluffy snugglers on the homestead.

A friend mentioned three Manx kittens that desperately needed a home as their human had died.

Before I continue let me just clarify for any who are unfamiliar with the Manx Breed they originated on The Isle Of Man and they have a naturally occurring mutation that causes their tails to be very short, more of a stump often than a tail. Their heads are round and their hind legs are slightly elongated. They come in lots of colours.  

So to return to my story, my three kittens arrived , two cream coloured and one silver grey. One of the cream coloured males didn’t make it to adulthood, which left me with one cream coloured male - Snowy and the silver female, named SuSu.

Fast forward 12 months and SuSu gave birth to two cream coloured kittens. This is where the root of my story starts taking shape. 

You often hear that male/father cats should be kept away from new kittens as they can be violent and even kill kittens sometimes. That they don’t appear to have paternal instincts and don’t generally help in the rearing of kittens.

As with many things in life though, you learn most from personal experience. On day one after the birthing Snowy stopped by the nest of mother and babies to see what had occurred. This was their first time making babies after all - they had been just kittens themselves only months earlier. 

SuSu immediately hissed at him and looked ready to attack him if he didn’t quickly remove his nose from their space.

Over the next week Su-Su moved her nest to a corner at floor level so it was harder for any one to see the babies and no chance to interfere in any way. They were so tucked away I could barely get a photo of the dear new little kittens

. 

Forward two weeks and the little ones start coming out to explore a little bit but Snowy seems to be hissing at them which is worrying. The smaller of the two kittens is much thinner and weaker and I fear it may not make it.

I pass by their shed a day later to find Snowy is trying to relocate the bigger of the kittens to another area - but just the big one, not the weaker one. It runs back to the nest two or three times and he picks it up and carries it away again. SuSu is outside somewhere having an exercise break I guess so sees none of this.

Within eight hours of watching this I return to find that the weaker kitten has sadly died.

I totally felt at that point that Snowy had been trying to separate the healthy from the weaker for a reason.  I feel he knew the other was dying.

Since that day I have found Snowy spending lots of time with the kitten while SuSu gets out and about again. She is a capable hunter and brings home baby rabbits from time to time.

I see Snowy lick-washing the kitten quite often and hanging out playing with him just like a mother cat does. The kitten certainly has a wonderful bond with his father and I feel very touched that Snowy is such a loving parent and interested to take care of the kitten a lot of the time while the mother is absent hunting and then when she returns the three of them snuggle all together. It is beautiful. So no matter what google might say, and to be fair, maybe other breeds of cats are not so paternal in their ways, but the fact is that Manx cats make wonderful fathers!