Catnip & kittens

[Barbara]

I think it was one of our Australian members who said that not all cats respond to catnip anyway. Ours like it but are not crazy about it. Tigris prefers valeriane- it's all about the drug that's in your culture

[Miranda Brooks]

You can put catnip out any time you want with kittens as it won't hurt them. However, all the stuff I've read about it when I researched it when I was fostering kittens said that most kittens either can't smell it or don't respond to it until they are older. That's what happened with mine. They ignored it and somewhere around 5 months they started to notice it or smell it or respond to it.

[Kirsten]

Only 70% of all cats react to it, as far as I know.

This is what I found on www.drsfostersmith.com:

"The catnip reaction is inherited in an autosomal dominant gene. Up to a third of adult cats, in which the gene is not present, are totally unaffected by catnip. Kittens under 3 months of age do not usually react to catnip, either."


Well, personally it surprises me that they say "kittens under 3 months of age", this is new to me; I thought it was 6 months...

Kirsten

[ShylanHal]

Neither of my girls go nuts over catnip, and Clover only with the freshest, as far as I can tell. They're total nutcases without it.

Try it on your kittens! See what they do!