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What Age Can A Male Cat Be Neutered

Do You Want To Adopt A Female Kitten

When should you neuter your kitten? Spaying & Neutering Explained

If you’ve got an un-neutered adult tomcat and you want to adopt a female kitten, it will be necessary to get the tomcat neutered beforehand.

A non-neutered adult male cat can be brutal with a younger female cat, even when they’re not in heat. He can cause much damage when trying to force himself upon her. Female adults know how to properly defend themselves against harassment, but younger cats do not.

Why Should I Get My Kitten Neutered

The central benefit to having your kitten neutered is that it removes the possibility of having unwanted litters, which can be difficult to manage and send on to a good home. It also reduces the likelihood of your cat contracting or spreading an STI, as their desire to mate is reduced. Their desire to fight is similarly reduced, which may bring with it the benefit of a quieter and more peaceful home environment.

Expectations After Neutering A Cat

There are a lot of owners who keep asking questions about what to expect after neutering a cat. As we have clarified in a previous part that neutering is a surgery where to remove male and female sex organs, especially, for male cats, testosterone manages male cats sexual attitude, aggressive behavior, and territory scent marking. These are some points of what to expect:

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Signs Of A Male Cat Nearing Sexual Maturity

Male British Shorthairs usually reach sexual maturity at around 12 months of age, but it can happen as early as 6 months of age! If you are decided on leaving neutering for as long as possible, be on the watch for these signs:

  • Urine becoming more pungent: if you have just cleaned the litter tray, and within a few hours you can smell your male cats urine, that is a sure sign that he is on his way to sexual maturity.

  • Showing a lot of interest in outside, or trying to get outside: this is a sign he is beginning to look for females – because his hormones are kicking in.

  • Spraying, or practising spraying: if you ever see him standing by a wall, or piece of furniture with his tail in the air and his bottom shaking, you know he is either spraying or getting ready to – get him neutered immediately.

  • Yowling: this may be quite a subtle sign, but if he starts miaowing in a high pitched, yowly way for no apparent reason, it could be him starting to call to attract female cats in the area.

  • More aggressive behaviour than usual: again, this might be quite subtle – dont expect the first sign to be a huge attack or bite from your cat. It may just be that his play gets slightly more aggressive, or he starts looking at you differently, or stalking you.

Reasons For Neutering Male Cats

What Age Can A Male Cat Be Neutered
  • Control of nuisance. Unneutered male cats are likely to stray over a large area, will mark their territory with a very pungent spray and are much more likely to fight with attendant noise nuisance.
  • Health issues. Fighting males are much more likely to spread diseases such as FIV and FeLV to other cats. They are also likely to suffer from fight injuries such as abscesses. Because they wander over a large area they are also at greater risk of suffering road traffic accidents.
  • Pet issues. Unneutered male cats will wander from home and may not return. They may also spray inside the home and may be aggressive to their owners. Therefore it is desirable to neuter kittens early enough to ensure that the above problems are prevented. Most people do not want to live with an unneutered male cat.
  • Population control. Obviously, male cats do not have kittens themselves and it only takes one male in an area to make lots of female cats pregnant, so neutering a female cat makes a great deal more difference to limiting numbers, but it all helps!

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Will Neutering Make My Cat Fat

No, neutering your cat wont make them fat. However, afterwards, your cat may not need as many calories to maintain a healthy weight. Make sure your cat is fed an appropriate amount of a complete diet thats right for their life stage so they stay slim and healthy. In fact, you can buy special food for neutered cats, which have the correct balance of nutrients and calories for them. If youre concerned your cat is putting on weight after neutering, talk to your vet or vet nurse about the best ways to keep them an ideal body condition score.

Our Advice On When To Neuter

Here is a quick video summary – have a watch, and read on for more information about how to tell when your male is about to mature….

We have no neutered British Shorthair males, so we cannot make a direct comparison between early neutering and late neutering from our own actual experience. But we have researched the issue. Here is our advice on neutering for male British Shorthair cats, intended to be family pets:

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Give Your Cat More Attention

For cats that spray for attention, devoting a little more time for playing and interacting may be all thats needed to solve the problem.

Grooming your cat, playing with toys, and rewarding good behavior with treats are great ways to interact positively with your cat. You can also try Nutro.coms list of simple, 10-minute games to play with your cat.

Benefits Of Spaying Or Neutering Your Adult Cat

Canine & Feline Diseases : How to Tell If a Cat Has Been Neutered

Just like with spaying or neutering your kitten, getting your older cat fixed helps lower the risk of health issues that are common in intact cats.

Some of the risks of leaving an older cat intact include pyometra, which is a life-threatening infection of the uterus and is more common in older cats, Dr. Satchu said. Neutered cats are at a lower risk of developing testicular cancers and prostate problems.

Additionally, a neutered male or spayed female cat is at a lower risk of wandering away to seek out mating opportunities, regardless of his or her age.

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Benefits Of Neutering Your Male Cat

Population Control

While male cats don’t actually have kittens themselves, one unneutered male cat in your neighborhood can make many female cats pregnant. That’s why neutering male cats is as important as spaying females when it comes to population control!

Health Issues

Neutering your male cat may help slow the spread of serious cat diseases such as Feline immunodeficiency virus and Feline leukemia virus that are often spread between cats during fights. Neutering can help to reduce cat aggression and may mean fewer injuries from fighting. Neutered males also tend to stay closer to home which helps to reduce their risk of being injured by vehicles.

Deter Undesirable Behaviors

Unneutered male cats typically spray inside the home more than neutered males and may be aggressive towards their owners. Having your male kitten neutered while young can help to prevent these behaviors from starting. Also, male cats who are not neutered, frequently roam over large areas in search of unspayed females to mate with. These males will spray to mark their territory and often fight with other male cats which can be bothersome, noisy, and smelly.

How Do I Prepare My Cat For Neutering

Preparing your cat for neutering is not a difficult task, you usually have to follow the instructions of veterinaries. Most of them recommend giving it food before a certain hour a day. You can avoid giving her water the night of the neutering. Cats with bad behavior can be locked for two or three days before the neutering to calm down. Some vets advise also to avoid mating periods for the cat to be neutered.

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It Does Not Produce Health Problems In The Kitten

One of the reasons why some veterinarians do not recommend neutering a cat earlier than 6 months of age is the risk of health problems. However, the VTFFSs review of scientific literature showed that early neutering does not cause any health issue in the growing cat. It does not affect the kittens physical and musculoskeletal development. Early neutering also does not lead to problems in the cats behavior.

Best Age To Neuter A Cat: Everything You Need To Know

Can Male Cats Spray After Being Neutered?

Neutering or spaying your kitten can help solve a lot of behavioral issues in cats. These can include territoriality and aggression. Feline sterilization can also help curb the incidence of disease while controlling the population of cats. Though there are a growing number of cat parents who recognize the need for neutering their pets, one question remains. At what age should they have their kittens or cats neutered or spayed?

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Benefits Of Spaying Or Neutering Your Cat

According to Dr. Jennifer Coates, veterinary advisor with petMD, spaying a female cat before her first heat cycle virtually eliminates the risk of mammary cancer. She says that this condition is especially serious in cats since feline mammary cancers tend to be very aggressive in comparison to other species.

Spayed female cats also cannot develop ovarian and uterine cancers or a potentially fatal uterine infection called a pyometra, Coates adds. Other health-related issues related to spaying include negating the possibility of the complications that can occur with pregnancy and birthing.

For male cats, Coates says that the benefits of neutering are primarily behavioral, although the procedure does eliminate the possibility that a cat will develop testicular cancer as he ages.

Anyone who as ever tried living with an intact male cat will tell you that the vocalizations, escape attempts, roaming, fighting and urine spraying associated with normal tom cat behavior can get old really quick, she says.

Feline AIDS and leukemia can both be spread between cats through bites, often spurred on by sexual competition, says Coates. So, reducing the urge to mate also reduces the likelihood that your cat will contract one of these oftentimes fatal infections.

Neutering Your Cat Key Facts

  • Neutering means surgically preventing cats from reproducing
  • Its recommended that cats are neutered at around four months old
  • Neutered animals might have slightly lower food requirements so you just need to feed them a little less

Neutering your cat can have really great benefits, both to them and to you! Plus youll be helping to tackle the growing crisis of pets being abandoned, dumped and given away because there arent enough homes to go around.

What is cat neutering?

Neutering means surgically preventing cats from reproducing. In males, the operation is called castration and in females its called spaying.

With castration both testicles are removed which takes away the main source of the male hormone testosterone. With spaying, both the ovaries and the uterus are removed which means the female is unable to become pregnant.

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Should You Even Neuter A Male Kitten Reasons Not To Neuter Your Cat

Not at all, according to animal campaigner Michael Freeby, whos been named Karen Expert by Parade Magazine for the 2020 holiday edition! A music video Freeby art-directed was recently nominated at the 2020 MTV Video Music Awards and is currently nominated at the 2021 TDY Awards!

I would not want to be neutered.

Michael Freeby

Freeby is strongly against kitten neuter. He says, Dont neuter them! I would not want to be neutered so I feel that neutering is cruelty, to say the least.

But what do the experts say?

How Will I Know If My Cat Is On Heat

Differences Between Neutered & Un-Neutered Cats : General Cat Health

Female cats may become more affectionate, crouch on the ground with their bottom in the air and more noticeably they can be very vocal and meow a lot. Male cats are generally less distinctive when theyre ready to mate with a female however they may begin to spray urine, roam more and mark their territory.

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What Does The Operation Involve

Both male and female cats will have to undergo a general anaesthetic. This will involve a period of starvation before the operation, however most animals can return home on the day of surgery, providing they have fully recovered from the anaesthetic.

In male cats both of the testes are removed in their entirety through a small incision in the scrotum. Stitches are rarely required in the skin.

What Neutering A Cat Looks Like

The terms neutering or spaying are applicable for both male and female cats in general. Neutering is a surgical operation held by the veterinaries where they sterilize the cat, it happens by projecting a high temperature or a boiling liquid on a cats sex organs to completely stop their functions. Female cats neutering is done by removing the ovaries and uterus by a small incision on the side of her left hand.

Male cats neutering is about taking out their testicles. Some vets say that neutering is healthy for cats, and it helps to control the populations of felines. Usually, spaying the cat is well done when the cat is not caterwauling because there will not be much blood and the horns of the uterine and ovaries will be drastically taken. Vets do a lot of blood tests before neutering to check that cats health is quite good for any surgical operation, cats illnesses are silent and vets are afraid sometimes to discover some tumors that can threaten the cats life. What to be expected after the ending of the surgery is:

  • Bleeding
  • Walking with a hunch-back Lack of appetite after the first day

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Why Should I Get My Cat Neutered

There are lots of reasons why its a good idea. Heres just a few:

For male cats:

  • Neutering reduces their chance of catching feline immunodeficiency virus , an incurable disease similar to HIV in humans which is spread by saliva usually from bite wounds during fights.
  • Unneutered cats that are confined can become frustrated and may try any escape route including out of your top floor window.
  • Neutering cats reduces their urge to roam and fight so theyre less likely to go missing, get hit by cars, or get hurt.

For female cats:

  • Spaying cats, especially if its done when theyre young, greatly reduces the risk of them getting breast cancer and infection of the womb . Both of these can be fatal.
  • Pregnancy and birth can carry significant risks to a cat.

For you:

  • A female cat can produce up to six kittens, three times a year. Thats a lot of mouths to feed.
  • It can be very stressful trying to make sure your cat doesnt get pregnant and, if she does, youve got the worry of caring for her through her pregnancy, birth and the rearing of her litter. And thats before the challenge of finding good homes for the kittens.
  • Female cats that arent spayed often come into season over and over again, which means they can be almost continuously in heat. This can be exhausting and usually attracts a queue of amorous and vocal tomcats to the house.
  • Unneutered male cats tend to urine-mark their territory, including your house, with a powerful and unpleasant scented urine.

For cat-kind:

I Have Unneutered Female And Male Cats In My Household What Should I Do To Avoid Unwanted Pregnancies

The Importance of Desexing Your Cat

If you have an unneutered male and female in the same household, have them neutered as soon as they reach 4 months old. If this isnt possible, and your female cat comes on heat, its essential to keep your cats apart at all times to stop them from mating. Please remember that related cats will mate, including brothers, sisters, fathers and daughters.

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It Reduces Or Stops Spraying

At what age can male cats spray. Neutering your cat is the most important thing you can do to curb this behavior. When to have your cat neutered. Most cats , can be neutered from 4 months old.

The scent of a male cat’s urine begins to change and smell more musky once they reach sexual maturity. The scent of a male cat’s urine begins to change and smell more musky once they reach sexual maturity. For the most part, kittens begin spraying urine when they hit reproductive maturity.

A male kitten reaches puberty between the ages of 4 and 6 months. Cats do this to mark their territory, to attract potential mates and advertise reproductive availability or as a manifestation of stress. Most male kittens usually start spraying when they reach sexual maturity which is typically around 6 months.

This is why most people get their cats neutered around that age. 13 capital cat spray remover water male cat spraying cat spray cats. Male cats may start spraying at around six months of age when they reach full sexual maturity.

/ at what age do male cats begin spraying. Nevertheless, as youll discover later on, there are plenty of other less painful and inexpensive methods to stop your cat from spraying. But dont be fooled and think that your baby female kitty is too young to have babies before they reach this age!

There are three general options:

14 Fetching Stop Cat Spraying On Bed Toxoplasmosis Admirable

14 Striking Cat Pee Spraying Stop Cat Spray Male Cat Spraying Cat Repellant

Can You Spey A Cat In Heat

Yes, although speying a cat in heat isnt quite as simple as a routine spey, its done regularly by most vets. Speying during a heat is a little more risky is because the blood vessels around their womb tend to be a bit larger and more likely to bleed. This means the operation is slightly more risky and can take a little longer.

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