Why neutering your cat is vital.
The bottom line is your cat will live longer, healthier lives if they are neutered, preferably by the age of 4-5 months. This isn't an opinion it is a FACT.
Here are a few more FACTS
Un-neutered tom cats
1) Their average life expectancy is just 5 years. This is because they take such big risks while travelling to find females. They are so focused on their one goal they pay no attention to traffic - 90% of cats killed on the roads are un-neutered tom cats. They are at high risk of contracting serious, life limiting diseases while fighting. They sustain many injuries from fighting, including abscesses and eye injuries, often requiring removal of the eye. Infections, if left untreated, can track round the blood stream unchecked, causing irreparable damage to major organs, such as the heart, liver and kidneys.
2) Neutered toms can't get testicular cancer.
3) Their life is tough, their hormones make them territorial and their life ends up revolving round fighting other tom cats to expand their territory.
4) They get lost so easily because they go off chasing after females, often over huge distances. Owners of un-neutered toms will know that they often go wandering sometimes for days at a time, eventually they won't come home at all and become strays.
5) As strays they become hated by other cat owners because they are bullies and aggressive. They will inflict serious injuries on other cats, resulting in large vets bills for those other owners. They often break into houses to steal food or pursue a female, spraying all over the place while they are at it.
6) They're noisy. Hearing cats fight is nasty. It's a horrible scream that everyone in the neighbourhood will have to hear. Plus mating is not a romantic candles and wine event, it is mostly on a par with rape and the noises from that are not pretty either.
7) They smell. Nothing makes your eyes water more than the smell of a tom cat! Spraying is one of the most anti-social habits and if you have a tom cat then your neighbours will hate you for it because they have to put up with a lot of the bad habits too.
Un-neutered females
1) When going through a heat cycle, females are incredibly noisy! They will go to extraordinary lengths to escape and the whole experience is frustrating and stressful for them. During the season they can have heat cycles almost constantly, often just a few days between each one.
2) Mating isn't any fun at all. Tom cats have a barbed penis, which tears the vaginal wall, and there will be a queue of them waiting for their turn to have their way with your little girl.
3) They can get pregnant from just 4 months old and pregnancy and labour for a cat so young is extremely dangerous.
4) Birthing isn't always as straightforward as you may believe. Complications happen to cats too, placental abruptions, resulting in massive blood loss, uterine infections, usually resulting in death for kittens and mother, difficulty with normal delivery requiring emergency c-section. If your cat does get into difficulties giving birth, it will cost in the region of £800-£1500 for a vet to save her life.
5) Mothers don't always take to their kittens or have sufficient milk to feed them all. Hand rearing kittens is a full time commitment, requiring 2 hourly feeds in the first weeks, so clear your diary well in advance.
6) Neutering prevents several cancers in females.
7) With each heat cycle when your female doesn't get pregnant, her chances of developing pyometra, which is a life threatening uterine infection, increases.
As well as the implications for your own cat, there is also the effect uncontrolled breeding has on all cats. We have a huge over population problem in the UK, with an estimated 6 million homeless and feral cats.
This situation is so serious and yet people still refuse to take it seriously and do the right, the responsible thing. Don't let your cats out before they are neutered, get them neutered at 4-5 months, cats don't need to have 'just one litter', every litter born impacts on this problem, those great homes you've found for your kittens, could have taken a kitten out of a rescue pen and allowed another one to be saved by taking their place. Both boys and girls need to be neutered at this age, don't assume everyone with the girls will do it so you don't need to neuter your boy, you do.
If you know someone with an unneutered cat who may not know the facts please feel free to print this off and pass it to them.