Male kitten is having behavior problems!

[LittleTiny Me]

I have a 4.5 month old male kitten. We rescued him from under a car which he was stuck underneath when he was around mb 1 month. Well, that was a few months back he is now 4.5 months old and we decided to keep him. He's black & white  w/ nose area split in different colors all the way to his lip. (pink, black & white). Hence the name Patches.  We fell in love w/ him bc of how lovable he is & bc he has long whiskers for his age.  
Saturday night a small kitten mb 2-3 comes to our porch crying. All dirty skinny & hungry. We took him in & feed him. Gave him a warm bath & covered him up. From the moment we picked him up he just kept purring. Happens to be a male as well. Patches (4.5 month old) saw him & instantly began hissing/growling & attempting to attack him. We had to keep the 2 separated. Patches sees the newbie sleeping on a bed...he jumps onto bed & starts hissing trying to attack him even in his sleep!!

I'm assuming this is normal male behavior? Cat rivalry? Patches starts to growl/hiss w/o the new kitten even being around. At times he even hisses at us. He wont let us pet him. He hasnt purred. He has also been hiding under beds & closets refusing to get out. He tends to sleep on his bed or ours. But not since we got this new little guy. He growls for a long period of time...seems to be very upset. Even when he's eating he's growling!!

What can I do to ease this a bit for both?? Get them used to each other?

[Savas]

Remember, he's only had a safe, secure home for about four months. So from his view, he's just settled down, when a new member has entered the household. A cat who was just rescued from a traumatizing experience doesn't think ANY change is good, for the better or worse, once he/she has adapted to her new routine.

Normally there's some hostile hitting and spitting when a newcomer comes in. It's only natural; there has to be a challenged issued for who's number one and who's number two. This being a young kitten, it makes the issue easier. A kitten knows it's place, it's low person on the totem pole, and will take their lumps stoically and ride out the hostility (partly because an older cat is a potential parental figure...the kitten has high hopes it will assume this role).

But you've got a cat who's only four months into it's home, so it could be a bit of a touchy situation.

Remember, these are cat's not people. They tend to work on instinctive behavior and not be psychotic (but...they CAN be, it's just very rare. But I doubt yours is).

the best thing you can do is probably let them work it out in your presence. try not to interfere. this will hopefully allow patches to assert his claim and become psychologically sure of his place in the home. As long as the kitten sits in a fairly stoic manner, things are probably going well enough. If Patches starts to repeatedly strike the kitten, and it runs or makes any indications of pain...then break them apart.

This may sound harsh, but they're animals, you can't reason with them. It's going to happen eventually and the chances you can watch them 24/7 are highly unlikely The longer you put it off, the more frustrated Patches will be.

Let us know how it works out.

[westplains_gurl]

sounds to me like patches is just very territorial and male cats usually are that i've seen. or maybe even jealous. since he's still young i think he may grow out of it.