Cat attacking her kitten

My cat, who is 5 years old, attacks her 3 month old kitten, hisses and punches the kitten in the face with her paw.

They both are female. When the kitten was born everything was OK, the mother watched over her and played with her nicely, but now she never goes near the tiny kitten and when she sees her she attacks her violently, not in a playing way. One time the little kitten was eating, and the mother saw her and just ran at her and started hissing and biting and punching her. Why did she just turn on her like that, when they got along so nicely before?

Answer by Kate
Well this could be two reasons. Either the mother cat is training her kitten (which can look pretty aggressive to us but is generally more show than anything else) Or which I think may be more likely she is trying to show her away because at three months she is moving into adult hood and will be competition for both territory and mates.

this is normal in the wild because the mother cat has to consider any new kittens she may have, so she has to make sure that the territory is not full of other cats (even if they are of her own litter).

To cure the problem you should be considering either having both cats spayed ( no competition).

I have a web page about aggressive cat behaviour which you may find of extra interest . here is the page
https://www.our-happy-cat.com/aggressive-cat-behavior.html

best wishes Kate

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