To Spay Or Not To Spay

[goldenkitty45]

You asked about the professional breeders - I bred rexes for about 5+ years. My females were bred once a year - you have to allow time to recover physically and emotionally. I was one of the lucky ones that my females did not come right back into heat after kittens were born. They usually waited 5-6 months before coming in again. Why? I have no clue, but it was nice and quiet.

The 3 week span is not the entire time they call or can breed- its usually a week of pre-heat, the actual week of being in full heat and the last a cooling off before they start all over, that's why I said about once a month.

 

[semiferal]

Originally Posted by BARASHIN

If I don't have her spayed
1) HOw long do these heat cycles last? Temporarilly, or can they just pop up at any time as long as she has her organs.

You can expect heat cycles to be up to one week on, two weeks off, year-round, for life. She may get a couple of months off in the late fall if she is lucky. If you are looking for something that will mess up her mental health, you couldn't find a better way to do it. When she is in heat, she will not be the cat you have come to know. She will be a completely different cat, and she won't understand what is happening to her at all.

Originally Posted by BARASHIN

2)Are there any health risks by not having her spayed?

Plenty. Breast cancer. Uterine cancer. Pyometra - a septic uterus that is fatal without emergency surgery and is sometimes fatal in spite of treatment. Feline leukemia and the feline AIDS virus, from mating with random tomcats. When she does get pregnant (and it is really a "when", not an "if", unless she gets pyometra first), there are innumerable complications that can possibly result from pregnancy, some of which can be fatal. Not to mention the awful thing of bringing an unplanned litter into the world. In the United States, more cats are killed in shelters simply because they do not have homes than die of any disease.

Originally Posted by BARASHIN

3)Does anyone have unspayed kittens (or one), and if so how did/are you dealing with it?

Yup, still have a couple of unspayed kittens from this summer. I'm dealing with it by having them spayed the instant I scrape together enough money. If one should happen to go into heat, then I will happily go without groceries for a week if that's what it takes to get her spayed in time.

Originally Posted by BARASHIN

She's so nice and peaceful now....I would hate for an experience like this to mess her up mentally...

Spaying definitely will not mess her up mentally, at all. What will mess her up is constantly being in and out of heat, having an entirely preventable medical crisis, or being a mother before she is mature enough. I can state without any hesitation or reservation that sterilized cats are happier and healthier.

 

[semiferal]

Originally Posted by BARASHIN

Well, that's an easy decision then. I was under the completley wrong idea in thinking that spaying a kitten was actually along the same lines of declawing.

"That'll stop her from scratching my rug!"

i.e. "That'll stop her from yowling for 3 weeks out of last month!"

I didn't realise that there were so many health benefits for the cat as a result as well.

Why do 'professional breeders' feel otherwise?

Makes sense...it sounds like you may have only heard about the benefits to the human. It's true that sterilized animals make better pets, but the health reasons are really the reason to have a cat spayed/neutered.

The breeders here (whom I would consider to be among the best in the field in terms of ethics) would not disagree with the benefits of spaying, as they require all the kittens they breed to be spayed/neutered unless they are going to be a part of the breeding program. They take great pains to make sure the queens do not get pyometra, and usually they are "retired" and spayed by around age 5. So it is not the same as allowing a cat to go unsterilized for life. It's a very controlled circumstance and not easy to maintain well.

 

[kaleetha]

In addition... ONE unspayed female and ONE unneutered male and their offspring can produce over 420,000 kittens in just SIX YEARS. Enough said.

Please spay her!

 

[joecool]

People, the OP gets it!

He said he understood that there are health benefits too and that he had not known that. LOL, this is what they were talking about in IMO....

 

[nebula11]

Originally Posted by joecool

People, the OP gets it!

He said he understood that there are health benefits too and that he had not known that. LOL, this is what they were talking about in IMO....

Right on Wesley.....