How to Have Multiple Cats

When you have multiple cats, the cats typically develop a pecking order. It is also true that cats that live in multiple cat households tend to revert to more wild behavior than do cats that live in single cat families. Having multiple cats though, provides companionship for the cats, especially if there is a large portion of the day when no one is at home.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Spay and neuter all of your cats, especially if you have cats of both genders. Otherwise your multiple cat household ends up growing larger in size whether you want it to or not.

2. Provide as many litter boxes as you have cats, even if the cats tend to share the litter boxes. Some cats do not like to use a used litter box and go outside of the box if another cat has gone in it. Place the litter boxes in different rooms of the house for easy access. Clean each litter box daily.

3. Put out several bowls of water and make sure they are filled with fresh water several times a day. Place the water bowls in different rooms of the house to make sure that all cats have easy access.

4. Supervise feeding time. Feed each cat out of his own dish. It is best to feed the cats away from each other. Free feeding rarely works when you have multiple cats because one or two of the cats dominate the food and become over weight, while others do not get their fair share and could become too thin.

5. Prepare yourself for spraying. Urine marking is much more common in multiple cat households. Purchase feline pheromone spray and apply it to areas that have been marked by cats to discourage the behavior.

[wytetyger059]

on 8/11/2008 Great tips, all of them. Before I knew about spay/neuter, I had 6 females who were indoor-outdoor and ended up with 36 kittens all at the same time. Get them spayed!