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The mating season is identified with the period of time in that cats are on heat, that is to say, sexually receptive. The appearance, characteristic and symptoms of heat are, with independence of the cat breed, substantially different between males and females.
Keep in mind that, in mating season, both males and females feel more restless to find a partner and they could run away from home in their search.
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Males
The males are able to reproduce since 8-12 months-old. Contrary to the females, they don't show seasonal periods of rut, but rather they are always available to mate with any receptive female that enters in their territory. Because of that, one of their main activities is to maintain his territory perfectly defined by means of a selective projection of urine spray, the furniture scratching and the impregnation with pheromones by friction on those more characteristic elements (corners, furniture, trees…). |
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This activity, regular of any adult and non neutered male, it is supplemented with other excitement signs (mating calls, wallows, loss of the appetite…), only in presence of a female cat on heat. The male detects the receptivity degree of the female by means of the calls intensities, the behaviour, and the pheromones scent that these secrete during on heat.
Although the males are fertile all the year round, they can suffer a libido decrease during the autumn and winter due to the decrement of the hours of solar light.
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Females
In general, the first heat of female cats appears between the 7 and 9 months-old, although it can retard its appearance until the 12 months. The frequency and duration of this heat, for their owners desperation, vary vastly from a cat to another in function of the conjugation of several factors so much physical as environmental: |
- Physical.
Related with the physiology and peculiar characteristics of each individual (weigh, constitution, genetic bias, character…).
- Environmental. The geographical place of residence (for the climate type and the daily number of sunlight), the life in freedom or in a home and the presence or not of other cats in their immediate environment .
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Anyway, at least female cats get on heat twice a year and usually coinciding with the beginning of the spring and of the summer, respectively. These heats cycles can follow one another uninterruptedly along the year, with intervals of about 15 days among them, in the case of indoor female cats with a daily exhibition of light among 12-14 hours. Also, and with independence of the frequency, each heat may last from several days (3 to 6…) to 20 days or longer.
The mating season in female cats is quickly identified by a very particular behaviour, consistent in the almost continuous emission of some strident and loudly meowing (“calls”), the close contact or almost obsessive rubbing of any object with her neck, head or hind quarters, the increase of her affection tokens, the sudden wallows on the back, the lateral tail deviation and the lordosis (rising of her rear back, kicking when caressing her back and lateral tail deviation showing the genital area). It is also possible that the female cat lack of interest in eating and urinate with more frequency.
Heat starts with a first phase of 12-72 hours (proestrus), in that the female begins to get in heat and shows the first symptoms to attract the male, but without allowing at all any physic contact. This phase is followed by another period of sexual receptivity to the male (estrus), which may last from 1 to 20 days.
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