Do Cats Go Through Menopause?
Have you thought do cats go through menopause - very much like how females bear children - then it is also possible that cats would have that menopausal age, just like in human females? Well, it is indeed quite a curious question I suppose. Let’s backtrack a little, it is then logical to also ask, do cats have their periods as well. All these things are connected and we will try to answer them as we read along.
What is Menopause?
We may be all too familiar with this condition that women at quite a later age experience. It is a condition where as a woman’s reproductive cycle comes to an end, there are evident changes that they will exhibit. These changes may come before or after a woman stops menstruating. Menstruation in women stops because it is said to be that there is only a finite number of eggs that a woman can produce in her lifetime.
A Glimpse of a Cat’s Reproductive Cycle
Just like human females, cats also undergo a reproductive cycle. Thing is, their reproductive cycle is rather different than that of human females. The human female reproductive cycle is called the menstrual cycle, while in cats it is called the estrus cycle. The estrus cycle is usually referenced by saying that a cat is in heat.
When a cat hits puberty stage, in six months or so, you will start to see several changes in your cat’s behavior. These include:
- Excessive rubbing against people or objects,
- Rolling too much on the floor,
- Posing and stretching too much in a mating position,
- Frequent licking of their genital area to ease swelling,
- Increased vocalization, and spraying.
Cat on Heat
A cat in heat will also have an increased urge to get out of the house. It can really become a problem for several cat owners when female cats enter their estrus cycle.
Once your cat manages to finally find a male and they are able to mate successfully, the next thing you will be looking forward to is the change in your feline’s behavior as she carries her kittens.
Soon you will notice how your cat becomes grumpy especially when you try to touch its belly area, and your cat’s nipples start to become more evident. The number of nipples a cat have is important it is where soon-to-be-born kittens will get nutrients from.
Now, if you will be asking, in this whole reproductive cycle in cats, do they bleed just like humans do? This is perhaps yet another difference in a cat’s and a human female’s reproductive cycle. While a female human bleeds during her menstrual cycle, a cat does not.
So Do Cats Go Through Menopause?
We have previously established that a cat’s reproductive cycle is different from that of a human female. There is little to no blood present at all. Following this scenario, the answer to that burning question is that female cats do not experience menopause. We are able to see senior cats or aged cats have litter after litter. There are situations wherein seemingly a cat goes through the menopausal stage – having difficulties and complications during pregnancy; but this is not due to being in the menopausal stage. A cat will generally have a hard time conceiving and have a difficult pregnancy, as it grows older because its body can no longer handle it the way it can during their younger years.
As your cat gets older, and as your cat continues to have a litter every time – each pregnancy will be harder than the last. Your cat can become more prone to uterine infection, or worse uterine cancer. If the purpose of this question is to find out whether or not your cat will eventually stop having kittens, then sorry to let you down but your cat will mate and have kittens until they can no longer do so – and that means when they’re already dead. The only piece of advice that a vet can give you when it comes to this is to have your cat spayed/neutered.
Bottom Line
Now that we learned that cats do not experience the menopausal stage, one kind thing we can do for them is to have them spayed/neutered. If they are not spayed/neutered, they will continue to breed until their last breath (even if older cats already have a hard time conceiving). This could lead to some health complications in the future, so we are doing them a favor if we have them neutered/spayed, aside from helping control the rising population of stray/abandoned cats.
