BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Cats How many cats is too many?

I'm really encouraged by the "What is your cat's name?" thread.
It seems that many people have more than 2 cats in their household.

A friend of mine has 8 (takes in strays and has a huge house & yard for roaming). They all eat breakfast in a row on his counter.

Can anyone tell me if they get jealous of each other, we only have 2 humans in 1 house.

i have 4 cats and two dogs. They are all pals. Many of them pair up with each other so all is good.

I imagine it depends a lot on the cats' personalities. We had four cats at one point and they didn't get along at well - to the point that we had to race one cat to the vet with her side torn open. We found new homes for 2 of them and now that we have 2 cats, they get along well.

It depends on a lot of factors. I live in a small apartment, so more than one cat is unrealistic, since I don't even have room for another litter box! Eight cats seems at the upper end of reasonable, and if it got much higher than that I'd be worried that the person may start unintentionally "hoarding" animals. Financially, I don't think you should have more cats than you can afford to take to the vet for routine checkups and spay/neutering.

(tangent) It really galls me when people say they can't afford to spay/neuter their pet, I actually saw someone giving away a cat that they had gotten declawed, but never bothered to spay! It boggles the mind.

I agree - to me it is part of the basic cost of owning the pet. It would be like saying "I got a cat - but I can't afford to feed him". When you take on a responsibility for a living animal, you budget out all the costs beforehand so you know you can be a good owner.

I've actually encountered that, where people would get "kitty chow" with no eye towards nutrition because it's the cheapest stuff around. There's a difference between being frugal and endangering your pet's health. I'm not saying everyone should buy the super expensive food, but something reasonably good at least.

We have had four cats since 1997 - not the same four, but I have this thing about odd numbers! The first bunch of four got along extremely well, and when the older two crossed the Rainbow Bridge (at different times) we adopted a brother and sister, and the new bunch of four got along well, too. Then the brother of the "dynamic duo" as I called them, died extremely prematurely and very unexpectedly of liver failure. After nearly a year we adopted a new family member, and it has been pandemonium ever since. He wants to play with everyone, and everybody else just wants him to stay out of their faces. Lots of cat chases, hissing, spitting and yowling, but no physical attacking, thank goodness. I keep thinking Sonny will settle down as he gets older and matures, but I think I have a perennial "kitten".

I have 3 cats now, one died last year at the age of 16. Two of them are 12 years old and one is 8 years old. All of them are male and they kind of just leave each other alone.

The youngest one tho, thinks he is a dog. He hangs out with our 2 dogs, gets treats when they do, etc. He and my little dog cuddle up together. It's so cute.

I do think you have to know if you can afford to have multiple animals and feed them good quality food, for instance. I get the best food I can afford for all my animals and they're really healthy.