Cat Care & Advice – Neutering

Neutering

Neutering is a procedure that prevents cats from producing kittens. A female cat is spayed which stops her from becoming pregnant, male cats are castrated to prevent them from getting a female cat pregnant.

As a cat owner it is important that you get all of your cats neutered by the time they reach 4 months old, as they can get pregnant from this age.

If you currently own an unneutered cat, you must ensure you keep it inside, and separate from any other unneutered cats of the opposite gender, until they have been neutered. Even cats that are related to each other will end up producing babies, so even 4 month old kitten siblings should be kept separate and neutered as soon as possible.

Benefits of neutering

The main reason to neuter your cats is to prevent unwanted litters.

If your cat were to have kittens you would be responsible for caring for them until they are 10-12 weeks old when they can be separated from their mother, raising healthy and well socialised kittens is very time consuming and expensive. Female cats can have 18 kittens in a year, which is a lot of extra mouths to feed.

Shelters like ours are overrun every year with accidental litters, so it is important that you prevent another unwanted litter coming into the world, as there are sadly more kittens than their are homes for them.

There are also many behavioural reasons to neuter your cats:

Spaying a female prevents undesirable heat behavious, such as calling, spraying and trying to escape or wander to find a mate
Castrating a male cat reduces the risk of spraying in the house
Castrating a male cat also reduces the risk of them fighting other males, which can prevent the contracting ot spreading infectious diseases such as FIV and FeLV
Neutering reduces a cat’s impulse to stray away from their home, as they will not have the urge to find other cats to mate with, this reduces the risk of wandering too far and getting lost or getting hit by a car.

There are also many health reasons to neuter your cats:

Neutering massively reduces the risk of reproductive cancers
Spaying reduces the risk of womb infections in females
Raising kittens is very tough on female cats, and they can loose a lot of weigh and become vulnerable to disease and illness.