I vote that if you would like to take care of kittens or have that experience, you can get that from a very needy mother cat whose kittens may depend on you generousity (sp??).Originally Posted by KittyLova
hello,
my quistion is if i had a female cat in heat would it be better to let her outside
to find a mate or adopt a male cat? I am not going to do this now.If i did this now i would fix my cat aflter she is done nursing her kittens.
thanks.
My real cat is fixed.Thank god.
I was going to say that! I don't let my cats outside at all (they are all fixed anyway). There are so many dangers on the streets. Just the other night I saw a coyote running on my street as I drove home. My friends cat (who is declawed and neutered) was hanging out in the backyard with his "dad" and got attacked by a stray who just wandered in. Luckily he is fine, but that stray could've had any kind of disease. And, let me tell you how I came to find my little Ashton...he was a stray who had been either hit by a car or abused. The vet said he had some forceful trama to him that caused his stomach to tear his diaphram and send the stomach and liver into his chest cavity and crush his lungs. I also know of a friend who's neighbor poisoned her cat because it pooped in his yard continually. Take the advice of everyone here. Spay your cat, help out a shelter if you want to experience kittens, and keep the pets you love protected and safe in your home if you can.Originally Posted by Jen
Good I am glad you will do that!! This is a really great thing to do and believe me, shelters will LOVE you for helping them out. You could call them now and say you are interested in fostering pregnant cats in the future and would like to know if they do it and what you need to know first.
BTW, if you were to just let the cat outside to find a mate, you have to think about the consiquences. Cats are not people, they cannot tell who is a good or bad mate and the male cats do not take no for an answer. You female could get very hurt in the process especially since females CAN get pregnant as young as 4-5 months (which would be like a young child having a baby!) but it doesn't mean that they are ready or mature enough to handle it. Males can mature later and you do not want your baby hurt by a rough, agressive male tom cat. Plus you never know what diseases he may have. He could have FIV or FeLV or a number of other diseases. You also do not know what diseases and problems run in the genetic history of the particular cats, yours or the male. The cats may appear healthy and be deemed healthy by a vet, but unless you know the genetic history, you are taking a great risk allowing them to breed without knowing.
Just something to think about, we don't just telll you not to let your cats out because of the overpopulation or because we are some crazy cat peopleThere are a lot of health reasons that many people do not even realize. This is part of the reason why BYB is such a bad thing too.
It is sad but in the US shelters literally kill hundreds of thousands of cats each year. I don't like aborting cat pregnancies and I don't think I'll ever like it, but given the choice between aborting fetal kittens and killing cats who are 100% aware of what is happening to them, I have to choose the former. Of course, my goal is that one day it won't be necessary to make those choices.
