If you don't have Messi fixed he will spray everywhere once he reaches puberty.
-
Too many ads? Join our community of cat lovers now to reduce ads by 90%! Click here to join for free!
Gender determination?
- Thread starter muffym
- Start Date
Neutering both boys will cut down on a LOT of frustration! And worry for you.
That kitten is just too dratted cute for words!
That kitten is just too dratted cute for words!
Hi everyone! I am a first time kitten mom and I am questioning the gender of my kitten. We were told she was a female when we got her but I'm not sure. Can anyone tell me what our kitten is? I'm sure the vet will confirm at her firsr check up but I'd like to name her before then. Thanks!
Last edited by a moderator:
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2015
- Messages
- 11,793
- Purraise
- 3,600
Looks male to me. Where did you get the little one?Hi everyone! I am a first time kitten mom and I am questioning the gender of my kitten. We were told she was a female when we got her but I'm not sure. Can anyone tell me what our kitten is? I'm sure the vet will confirm at her firsr check up but I'd like to name her before then. Thanks!
Last edited by a moderator:
Thanks very much! We got her from a friend
Looks iike a little boy to me, too! If you haven't made it over to "New Cats on the Block" yet, please do go and introduce us to you and your furbaby!
I see a number of people saying this, but it cannot be true of all male unfixed cats. We had a male cat who lived from 1970 to 1982. At that time it was common to let cats be "intact", and our unfixed cat did not ever spray. Would be nice to know if this is due to genetics or something else.
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2015
- Messages
- 11,793
- Purraise
- 3,600
Well of course nothing is true of 100% of cats, they'd never be that consistent! :tongue2: But a large percentage of intact males will spray. If allowed outside, sometimes they will only spray outside, but then they get a lot of females pregnant so that's not a good solution :/. They usually also fight with other toms if they're allowed outdoors.
There may or may not be a genetic component. I'm told that certain purebreeds spray less, and that if a breeder is careful to only breed from males who don't spray, it lessens (but doesn't eliminate) the chances that his sons will spray. But of course with moggies we rarely know who our cats' fathers are, so that's not too useful to most of us, lol!
Of course he was allowed outside. The idea of indoor cat was unheard of and would have provoked gasps of horror at the time. Even today many shelters will not allow people to adopt a cat unless it can be outdoors at times.
And if it doesn't have to do with genetics, is there some other explanation?
Maybe that is the clue. If spraying indoors was common, I would have heard of it, but I never did hear about it.
Our cat had another peculiarity: he would molt. The first three springs after he was born he would cast off his entire fur the way a hare or a squirrel does. Maybe he was a little special.
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2015
- Messages
- 11,793
- Purraise
- 3,600
If he was intact and allowed outside he was spraying out there.
Okay. What matters to us is what makes an intact cat refrain from spraying indoors. But this is not the right thread for that discussion. And there are so few unfixed male cats now that the question is mostly of interests to breeders, I suppose.
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2015
- Messages
- 11,793
- Purraise
- 3,600
Males spray to claim their territory. They will do this outside if they are allowed outside. That does not mean they won't spray inside too, though. If they don't go outside, they smell other males and females from outside and will spray inside.
There are a lot of intact male cats still. Overpopulation is a huge problem.
If you want to leave your cat inside and let him spray or not spray, I have no issue with that. As we were discussing with the OP, the issue with an intact male going outside is that he's going to impregnate an untold number of females and viciously fight other males.
Of course. But in urban areas, among the sort of people who participate in cat forums, things seem to be getting under control. It's different in the countryside, which still seems to live on the other side of a cat culture gap, at any rate where I live.
LOL. You got HIM from a friend!
Quite the opposite here. No shelter will give you a cat without a written agreement that it be indoors only.
Norway is a small country. Maybe there are few unfixed male cats there, but four million unwanted dogs and cats are still euthanized every year in America.
Actually, I don't know much about it. For all I know, many shelters may have the opposite policy. What seems to be true is that they are rather choosy about whom to accept as cat parents.
Some context went missing here. I meant that there are few unfixed male cats that are kept indoors. Of course there are plenty of strays and ferals that are unfixed. But I wonder whether they really are the problem. I would be more worried about owners of female cats who still think it is a crime to spay them or who think they should have at least one litter. There seem to be quite a few of them.
Four million is a disturbing number. It's a relief to know that D. Trump will do something about it next year.
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2015
- Messages
- 11,793
- Purraise
- 3,600
It goes both ways. If there are less males to impregnate the females...
Theoretically, that sounds right, and with some animals castrating the males is an effective birth control method. . .but in my experience, a female cat in heat WILL get pregnant, even if all the males in the general area are neutered. A tom wanders in from a few miles away, or she wanders off to find a tom, whatever, she'll find a way. So unless someone lives on an isolated island, neutering the males isn't going to make much difference in birth rates! It will prevent a lot of fighting, roaming, and spraying though.
Just my own thinking on this topic.
