Cats and Mating
cat breeding Before considering breeding your cat, it’s essential to understand the complexities involved in mating, reproduction, and delivering healthy kittens. Breeding might not always be the best choice. For male cats, or toms, puberty occurs between 6 to 8 months of age, enabling them to fertilize females. Their reproductive life can extend beyond 14 years. To ensure successful breeding, a tom should come from a healthy, well-sized litter and a mother with no birth complications.
The Female (The Queen)
cat breeding For female cats, or queens, the breeding season typically begins around January or February and can last until October or November, influenced by daylight and temperature. Queens can start bearing kittens as early as 7 to 9 months old and may remain fertile for up to 7 to 9 years. It’s crucial that females also come from a healthy background with no complications during birth and regular heat cycles. Additionally, a thorough health check and history are important to identify any genetic disorders.
cat breeding During heat, which can last from 3 to 20 days (average 5 to 8 days), the female may show behaviors like rubbing against objects, persistent meowing, and rolling on the floor, but may not allow mating. This can be mistaken for pain by untrained owners, though it is merely a result of hormonal changes. The interval between heats is typically 3 to 14 days, with an average of 10 days, meaning queens cycle approximately every 12 to 20 days during the breeding season. In a cycling queen, hormonal changes play a crucial role until she mates. Estrogen triggers the onset of heat, while progesterone is essential for maintaining pregnancy. As estrogen levels increase, the queen enters heat; when they decrease, her heat cycle ends. This fluctuation in estrogen levels continues until the queen successfully mate
The Mating
cat breeding When a female cat is in heat, she is less sensitive to environmental changes, so she is typically brought to the male for mating. The mating process itself is brief, lasting between 30 seconds to 4 minutes. The male cat begins by biting the female’s neck, mounting her, and thrusting to achieve penetration, which usually lasts about 4 seconds.
cat breeding Immediately following this, the female often reacts with a loud scream and attempts to escape by turning, rolling, or swatting at the male. She then goes through an “after-reaction,” where she may roll or thrash and clean herself, which can last up to 9 minutes.
cat breeding Time between matings can vary from as little as 5 minutes to as much as 30 minutes, and a female may mate with up to 30 different males. Studies have shown that a single mating results in pregnancy only 50 percent of the time. Queens are generally not selective about their mates, which means that a single litter can have multiple fathers. Each kitten has one father, but kittens in the same litter can have different fathers.
The Pregnancy
cat breeding Pregnancy in cats lasts between 64 to 69 days. To diagnose pregnancy, you can either palpate the queen’s abdomen or use ultrasound. An experienced person may be able to detect the pregnant uterus around day 16, where it feels like a string of pearls. By day 20, the fetuses are generally discernible in a relaxed queen.
cat breeding Ultrasound is a valuable tool for confirming pregnancy and monitoring fetal development and heart rates, and it can be conducted from day 26 until birth. Additionally, some queens may show changes such as enlarged and pinkish mammary glands as early as day 18 of pregnancy.
