I THINK MY NEW KITTEN IS A GIRL

[brownishing]

help I'm panicking... i just realized my two months old kitten is actually a girl, i thought it was a boy that's why i wanna adopt it at first.

I decided to adopt it because i thought my 5 months old male kitten need a friend, while their first encounter made the younger hiss almost all day and my older kitten tried to bit the younger's neck.

I thought they were playing around but now that i think about it, I'm afraid the older was trying to "mate" her as he is almost 6 months old and nearing his first heat(?)

What should i do right now? Thank you for taking your time answering this

 

[di and bob]

I would just get them both neutered and spayed and everything will be fine. He is most likely feeling his hormones starting up, a good time to have him neutered before he starts spraying your house. Your little girl can come into heat as young as 5 months and pregnancy at that age is very hard on them. I would have her spayed before that age. Well, now you have one of each, and I would bet the little girl will set him straight pretty soon, they usually don't put up with boys messing around!

 

[brownishing]

I would just get them both neutered and spayed and everything will be fine. He is most likely feeling his hormones starting up, a good time to have him neutered before he starts spraying your house. Your little girl can come into heat as young as 5 months and pregnancy at that age is very hard on them. I would have her spayed before that age. Well, now you have one of each, and I would bet the little girl will set him straight pretty soon, they usually don't put up with boys messing around!

oh my this is worser than i thought... the problem is i don't have the money for neutering or spaying them... is there any other alternative?

 

[Willowy]

You probably won't want to keep them if they aren't spayed and neutered. Unneutered males often spray strong-smelling urine all over the house and are sometimes aggressive, and unspayed females (who don't get pregnant) howl and might also urine mark when in heat.

There are usually free or low-cost spay/neuter programs available. What area do you live in? We can try to find something for you.

Anyway at 2 months she's too young to go into heat or get pregnant, so you do have a couple months to sort things out .

 

[brownishing]

You probably won't want to keep them if they aren't spayed and neutered. Unneutered males often spray strong-smelling urine all over the house and are sometimes aggressive, and unspayed females (who don't get pregnant) howl and might also urine mark when in heat.

There are usually free or low-cost spay/neuter programs available. What area do you live in? We can try to find something for you.

Anyway at 2 months she's too young to go into heat or get pregnant, so you do have a couple months to sort things out .

What if i keep her in cage when her heat is coming? Now that i think about it, my male kitten is more aggressive these days since she is here, I'm just scared if his heat come through he would try to force her down as she's younger and definitely more fragile.

I am in Indonesia and the place that i live in is lack of the vet. I'm really panicking in the middle of the night rn

 

[di and bob]

Having endless kittens is more expensive in the long run. The first priority is to have her spayed. Start looking into vets and how much they charge. Maybe you could start saving now or set up a payment plan.
Or rehoming her if you can before she gets much older. I'm so sorry....

 

[di and bob]

Males dont come into heat, they are ready anytime. Keeping her in a cage until she is older would help, you could bring her out when you can supervise. I wonder if there is a vet in a nearby town or one that travels..

 

[Willowy]

No, you really can't keep cats separate when the female is in heat the way you can with dogs. Cats can be fertile without any outward signs so you could never be sure whether she was fertile or not. So they'd have to be kept separate all the time once she's of reproductive age.

Right now you don't really have to worry because they're quite young. While males may be fertile at 5 months, they usually don't start acting like tomcats until 8 months or so, and females usually don't become fertile until 4 or 5 months. So you have a little while.

I know some villages in certain countries have government vets to care for the livestock. Do you think there's one of those in the area? Maybe they could at least castrate the male, as it's a very simple procedure.

 

[Caspers Human]

Get the male neutered first.

It is often cheaper and it will take some of the urgency out of the situation until you can save up the funds to get the female spayed.

A female cat might lead a male on, through pheromones, behavior or both, but it is usually the male that is the initiator of the mating act.

Getting the male neutered will stop the problem before it starts and give you time to come up with a complete solution.

However, you will still need to get the female spayed.

An intact female emits pheromones that will attract other male cats from miles around, even if you keep the female completely indoors. Male cats can smell a female through the walls of your house, almost as if the walls weren’t even there.

If you don’t get her spayed, male cats will come to your house and spray urine around the outside of your house and that could cause behavior problems for BOTH of your cats.

They will become territorial, try to escape the house and urinate all over. Even the male might do this although he has been fixed.

Just get both cats fixed, one at a time, and these kinds of problems will be lessened or completely go away on their own.

Getting your cats sterilized might seem like an expense, now, but avoiding it will just end up costing you a lot more in the future.

 

[ArtNJ]

Apparently, the age that a male will start spraying varies a lot. But once they start, they don't stop and your ability to keep them in the house without destroying your house gets 1000x harder. So you do have to find a vet, or your going to be heartbroken when he starts spraying and you have to get rid of him. You wouldn't be able to find him another home at that point either. As noted, you have a little bit of time if you are sure the female kitten is really around 2 months old.

I think we've had other folks from Indonesia mention how hard it is to find a vet, so I understand. But even if you didn't have the female kitten, you really can't keep a male cat as a house pet if you can't neuter him unless your willing to kick him out at some point down the road. Cat breeders have fancy set-ups, but sounds like you can't afford fancy right now, so neutering the male is likely your cheapest option.