The heat in the cat: How long, symptoms and what to do

One of the most important components of the life of any animal, including cat, is that of reproduction. When they reach a certain point in their lives it said puberty animals start having instincts of reproduction, which manifest themselves differently in different species.

As for cats, their puberty comes very, very early: already in just six months of life are able to mate and females, in particular, may become pregnant and give birth to two months after many beautiful kittens.

But how does the cycle of the cat, how many times goes into heat and, above all, as realize that our pregnant pussy is or how to avoid it?

The estrous cycle of the cat

Before you understand how the cat in heat, it is important to understand how her reproductive life. If you have a dog or if you are a woman, you know that the cat everything works differently from these species. Let’s see why.

First, the cat does not speak of the menstrual cycle, but the estrous cycle. The reason is obvious: a cat has her period, and never loses blood from the vulva, unlike both of the woman’s bitch. For this you can not tell when a cat goes into heat just on the strength of blood loss.

Even the same cycle in a cat works in a different way from that of other animals: the cat, in fact, never does not ovulate, unless that mates with a male, unlike a woman who does it every month, or a bitch it does every six. It is one of the so-called species in induced ovulation, of course induced by the male.

For this, the egg of the cat remains in the ovary, and starts to produce estrogen that will go into heat.

How long does the heat of the cat? It lasts three to ten days. If the coupling was not there, at the end of this period the cat avrrà a kind of menstruum (not a menstruum, though !!), a period in which her uterus is regenerated, which is however very short, and then resumes the heat after about three days of discontinuing previous. This cycle heat-no heat goes on throughout the year except in winter, when you stop because of the cold.

In the event that the cat were to mate, a male’s penis, which is covered with spikes (seen with the naked eye), scratching his private parts of the cat (which, however, he gets angry and scratching with nails) and this It serves to bring down the eggs from the ovaries. This mechanism creates confidence that the male sperm meet the egg cells of women, and the pairing is successful.

How to recognize the heat: the symptoms and what to do

The cat in heat is very clear and it is very difficult not to notice. In fact, if there are males who travel the owner of the cat does not sleep at night (because of repeated vocalizations, real chants). In addition, the cat will want to play often, will do many more melted than usual, if scratched at the end of the back will be lowered and the legs open, a behavior that leaves well understand what he would like.
One of the typical questions of the owners, but a cat in heat suffers? The answer is no, he does not suffer, indeed. Moreover, a woman suffering from heat?

Things to do in these cases, are two: if it does not create problems, we can leave the green light to the male and to breed the cat, which will have a pregnancy that lasts two months (after a fortnight the kittens They can see with ultrasound, after a month and a half with an X-ray) and after delivery the cat will not go into heat for another month, roughly, because it’ll be breastfeeding.
The opposite situation is one where we do not want the kittens are born: if the cat is pregnant now let’s give birth, do not sterilize durrante pregnancy, but if it has kittens as a remedy to the heat of the cat we think the intervention of oophorectomy, the so-called sterilization, in which a veterinarian will remove the ovaries.

It is a simple intervention, the cat did not even notice the difference, simply will not have the mating instinct. He will live his life without any problem and without rancor, and we can rest easy because we will avoid handling kittens and, above all, they will not be brought into the world of animals that no one (for reasons of space or cost) could want.