Saturday, January 7, 2012

CAT STATS


When I started trapping and fixing feral cats, I was curious how often they went in heat, had litters, etc.  I knew some of it from rescue/shelter work but was also quite surprised by some of the stats.

Female cats can go in heat and have their first litter as early as 4 months old, although 5/6 months is more common.  They are usually in heat for 7 to 21 days and if pregnancy doesn’t occur, they can go in heat as soon as 2 days later.  And kitties are not like humans, they do not go through menopause, they can have babies until they die.

Female cats can become pregnant at any time during the year, especially in mild climates.  In climates where there is usually a hard winter, they can become dormant. 
For instance, in Tennessee, since our winters are usually pretty moderate, our “safe” season is usually in January.  But there’s always the exception.

The average pregnancy for a cat is usually around 2 months and (this is scary), they can have 5 litters in a year. The average litter is from 3 to 6 kitties.  And they can go back in heat a week after giving birth. 

You can spay them while they are nursing but it’s humane to wait until the kitties are eating dry food on their own: About 6 weeks.  You’d just have to make sure they were  separated from any male cats not neutered.   It takes about 2 weeks after spaying for the milk to dry up.  You can also have them spayed if pregnant.  I guess it would be kind of like an abortion but it’s better than contributing to the cat overpopulation problem.  Not to mention, the way they reproduce, you’d have to make sure they were all fixed before you could adopt them out.  I’m a little mixed on this but I put an ad on Petfinders and there are 15,000 cats up for adoption in a 100-mile radius from my zip code.  I so strongly believe in Spay/Neuter. 

I’ve also read quite a few articles on cats and breast cancer.  There have been tests that show that having a female cat spayed before her first litter can reduce her risk. The same with neutered male cats. It reduces their risk of testicular cancer.

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