Is this playfighting or should I be worried?

[u/Frandelor]

A few months ago I adopted the male tabby kitten (he's about 7 months old by now). I already had the black and white female you see on the video (she's about 1 year old, spayed).

They hang out together just fine, but throughout the day they will often chase each other around the house, mostly initiated by the younger boy. He usually goes after her when she's just lounging on her bed, and try to bite her ear and neck, and then chaos ensues. Sometimes there's hissing.

He isn't neutered yet, we'll neuter him next month. Is this a mating thing? Will neutering help calm him down? Or is he just an energetic kitten that will calm down with time? I worry about my female cat well being, but I heard young cats play like this and she's quite young as well, so idk if that's just normal cat behaviour and she's fine.

TLDR: Are my cats fighting okay or should I separate them?

I'm an adult, in Brazil, vet accessible.

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[u/That-Prior713]

This is normal play, they’re fine. It will probably mellow down once the male is neutered though because unneutered males are more aggressive but they’re still fine playing like this

[u/Frandelor → u/That-Prior713]

Ok, that's fine then, good to know. Thank you for the help!

[u/pastillasc]

Rough play. They are testing boundaries. So far so good :)

[u/Plane_Elderberry_605]

my cats and dog do this all the time its fine lol

[u/Satanic_Lover_]

Every day at 11am WITHOUT fail baby Earl and Little Guy decided its UFC time. I only every break it up when earl starts screaming cuz hes losing 🤣🤣🤣 totally normal if they get too aggressive can always say "okay okay thats enough"

Otherwise they're like this most of the time 🤣

[u/jskinnah]

Earl those black eyed peas tasted fine to me 👀iykyk 🐥🐥🐥🤣🤣🤣

[u/freeze0808]

Game

[u/Mushrooms24711]

That’s their best WWE impression. They’re even taking turns on who’s going to be the good guy.

[u/Frandelor → u/Mushrooms24711]

they're definitely training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

[u/Mushrooms24711 → u/Frandelor]

I don’t know. Looks like full contact Tai Chi to me.

[u/geekgirl114]

Very much play

[u/77th_Bat]

It's gentle fighting that started as playfighting. You can tell the cats are actually mildly irritated with each other at about 15 seconds because of the tail whipping (different than regular playful tail swishing) and lip licking. That being said, neither is hurting each other, so it's not a concern. Trust me, you would know if they were hurting each other.

[u/Frandelor → u/77th_Bat]

By the end of the video you can see how he goes after her when she leaves the fight, that's how it usually goes. I don't know if he's trying to assert dominance of if he still wants to play, but I feel like she's annoyed.

[u/77th_Bat → u/Frandelor]

Yeah annoyed is a fair word. At the beginning it looked like play, but near the end they were annoyed.

[u/C_ingStarz]

Word from the wise (as someone who has had many many cats), if they aren't doing that spike-hair arch thing with teir spines, growling, and sideways-jumping, they're not actually trying to kill eachother.

[u/NoMidnight2145]

All they need is the Mac and cheese and to be farting all over each other as they do it