Age of cats: how to count the years of cats

It is not always easy to understand the age of cats: some retain their beauty and their agility for a long time, hiding the signs of age from the most expert eyes. Even the size often deceives, there are cats that are already very large at one year of age, and cats that stay longer and look like teenage kittens.

It is very interesting to try to compare the age of the cat to the man, to understand how one can feel for example a 15 year old cat: will he feel like a 50 year old adult man? or of 70? This is also a comparison that can be useful, but it is always relative.

Age of cats: how to understand it

If, for example, we have found a cat and we do not know how to define its age well, we can take it to the veterinarian, who with his expert eye can perhaps understand the age of the cat by observing certain characteristics.

One of the ways the veterinarian uses to determine a cat’s age is to observe his teeth: if he is a puppy he will still have milk teeth, and generally a cat reaches full teeth as an adult around 8-9 months of age. Read also: Do cats lose their teeth?

This too, as you can imagine, is a rough estimate, because the change of teeth varies from cat to cat, even if the state of health of the teeth can also be evaluated to understand how old a cat is.

It is also difficult to understand the age of a cat because, for example, the state of the hair, the size and physical fitness also depend very much on the type of life that leads the cat. There are cats of 20 years with perfect and healthy hair, and cats that live on the street that at 10 years are already haggard and with rough hair.

The only case in which we can almost certainly define the age of a cat is whether we follow it from birth or from a few days or months of life.

How do you count the years of cats?

But how to calculate the effective age of a cat, compared to our human years? How do you count the years of a cat in relation to the ages of man, to understand what phase of life our cat is passing?

It is generally said that the age of a cat in relation to human years is calculated by multiplying by 7 each year of our cat’s life. However, this method is not always very truthful, because it would result in a life expectancy of up to 140 years.

Generally speaking, you can calculate the age of the cat with respect to humans, thinking that a cat reaches sexual maturity around 12 months of life, while humans reach it around the age of 15-16.

A cat more than a year old is already an adult, while a cat of 3-4 years corresponds to a human around the 30th.
A cat of 7-8 years of age is in its middle age, which corresponds to our 45-50 years, a full adult age. When the cat begins to be 12-13 years old, it seems to be already old, even if a cat can live up to 20 years. Read also: Average life of the cat, how much it can live

Age of the cat compared to the man

There is also a sort of comparative table, with respect to the years of life of a human, which allows us to understand a little better in what stage of life our cat is, if it is a childhood age, if it is a teenager or if it is a cat in mature or old age. This way you can understand the years of cats as you count. Here she is:

Age of the Cat = Human years

3 months = 2-3 years
6 months = 7 years
1 year = 15-18 years
2 years = 25 years
3 years = 30 years
4 years = 32 years
5 years = 36 years
6 years = 40 years
7 years = 44 years
8 years = 48 years
9 years = 52 years
10 years = 56 years
11 years = 60 years
12 years = 64 years
13 years = 68 years
14 years = 72 years
18 years = 88-91 years
20 years = 91-96 years
21 years = 96-106 years

Unfortunately cats really grow too fast, the years of the best cats are, after childhood, around 7-10, then a phase begins already in which we must begin to consider them as elders and have some more foresight, take them to the vet more often and check that they are well. Read also: Stages of cat growth and development

The maturity of the cat happens very quickly as you have seen, a 12 month old cat is already perfectly able to make puppies and reproduce, at 2 years of age a cat corresponds to a 25 year old human, and at 3 years a cat is perfectly adult. So let’s enjoy them while they’re small!

And do you know for sure how old your cat is? Did you follow him as a child or did you have any surprises? Tell me your experience in the comments.