male cats & sexual maturity?

I'm not sure if this is the right place to put this, but I scanned the list a dozen times and couldn't find anywhere more appropriate for it.

I had eight cats, my four adult cats (all de-sexed) and my four kittens (not yet de-sexed) until my ex house mate could no longer look after her 18 month old female cat Skittles. The choice was, that either I took her, or she'd be taken to the pound. Now we all know what happens to adult cats at the pound and I had formed an attachment to her when she was at my house. So I took her, and thus I became the proud (can you see the sarcasm?! lol) owner of 9 cats.

On a side note, the looks I get when I tell people this are priceless - especially at the grocery store when I buy 7 days worth of food and litter = 35 cans, 10lb bag of dry kibble and about 50lb of kitty litter (5 fully indoors, 2 semi indoors)

This caused all sorts of chaos obviously, as it upset the balance in my house in subtle ways, but all those can be overcome.

My problem though, is that my kittens are 21 weeks old now. Which means that they are 5 and a half months.

They're all indoors, the kittens at the moment, so unlike my adult cats I haven't yet spayed them but they are definitely getting spayed after their 6th month. I still see them as babies at the moment and the thought of them going under the knife when they're so tiny and young is daunting, knwim?

Spaying them hasn't been a problem up until now. Unfortunately, the owner of Skittles never did get her Spayed and I have this horrible suspicion she's going into heat.

I DON'T want more kitties! I DON'T want her pregnant. She is indoors with the rest. This wouldn't be a problem except my male kittens are NOT de-sexed yet.

The question here is, will my male kittens be able to impregnate Skittles? Are they old enough of sexual maturity at 5 and a half months?

I will be getting Skittles de-sexed, more so that she can go outside and stop peeing on my floors (this cat is seriously mental - I think she was abused) but A) can't afford it right now and B) I'm going away for 2 weeks from Wednesday, so couldn't de-sex her until mid march.

Will she get pregnant between now and Mid March being indoors with my 2x 5.5 month old kittens?

thanks

Autumn

The short answer here is yes, the males most certainly can impregnant the older female. It is best that you segregate everyone who isn't spayed or netuered right now and make arrangements to have that done ASAP. The males, bless their little hearts, can still have viable sperm for as much as a month AFTER neutering, so you will want to keep them away from any of the unspayed females until a month has passed. There may be some low- or even no-cost spay/neuter clinics in your area ... have you checked into that or do you need some assistance there? If you can let me know generally where you are, I might be able to come up with a list of clinics that could offer you some assistance.

Gayef answered your questions but I wanted to add a few things...

Do you use low cost clinics for spaying and neutering? There are one's here that only charge $25-$50 depending on male or female.

Also, kittens can be spayed and neutered as young as 6-8 weeks of age. Spaying and neutering is such a simple routine procedure and there is no reason and not worth the risk to wait all the way until 6 months, when they can impregnate each other at 4-6 months.

just some things to think about. I don't know where you live, outside of the US seems to be very different on age to speuter. But if you are int he US, please tell us where and we can hook you up with a low cost clinic in the area.

Yes some males at 5 months old are capable of breeding a female in heat successfully. So I would STRONGLY advise you keep the female away from ALL unaltered male cats or kittens in the house.

BTW males still can get the females pregnant for about 30 days after being neutered!

You should get them spayed ant neutered as soon as possible.

Whereabouts in the world are you? It really makes it easier for us to help if people put at least the country in the location box in their profile!

As others have said, kittens of that age can get a female pregnant, or if they are female themselves there is a possibility they could become pregnant, even tho they are still babies themselves. Unfortunately cats have evolved to, in nature, 'live fast, die young', producing as many offspring as they can in as short a period as possible, so even cats that are not fully grown can have kittens, to the detriment of their own health.

Tell us which country/state/province/county you are in and I daresay someone will be able to provide information about low-cost neuter/spay clinics in your area so that you can prevent any more kittens