Lora Lee February 22nd is National Spay/Neuter Day, so I thought this would be the perfect time for me to write about kitten season, the importance of spay and neuter, and my experience with TNR (Trap, Neuter, Return). Let’s start with what is Kitten Season.
Kitten Season is usually defined as the time between the months of March – October. These are the months when feline reproduction goes into overdrive. This is not to say that cats will not mate and reproduce the other 4 months, especially if you live in an area where the effects of winter are not really felt. An un-spayed female can become pregnant at the young age of 4 months. This poor kitten is now responsible for kittens herself. The average female can have at least 3 litters a year. She will typically have 4-8 kittens per litter. A female will stay in heat for 7 days. During this time, she can be impregnated by multiple males. This means that she will have to endure the stress and pain of mating more than once in those 7 days. And we thought it was tough being a human female!
And then, there is the male. The Tom Cat. A male cat will reach puberty between 6-9 months. You can recognize a Tom Cat by a few distinguishing features. The obvious massive testicles hanging below their tale. They will have a thicker neck with a wider, thicker head and face. This is to help protect them in fights. Because a Tom Cat will fight a serious fight for a chance at a female in heat.
Which brings me to the importance of spay and neuter. Now, I know I’m not a math teacher but let’s look at some numbers. As I mentioned above, a female cat can become pregnant at 4 months of age. If she has 3 litters that 1st year, with only 4 kittens in each litter, she will have produced 12 kittens. If half of those 12 are females and they each have 12 kittens, along with the original mom’s new yearly 12, then you will have 84 kittens in 2 years.
I witnessed this 1st hand in 2016. (Read about my Kracken kitties and Cat House kitties). I had a semi-feral female wander up to my house. Of course, I fed her. She would stop by occasionally for food. Didn’t see her for a couple of months, until she showed back up with 4 very feral kittens. Once she got them set up with the “all you can eat” food buffet in my garage, she left. Now, I have 4 kittens, 2 females and 2 males, who are very feral and very scared. This was before I knew about TNR.
Early 2017, one of the females gave birth to 4 kittens, 2 females and 2 males. October 2017, the other female of the original litter gave birth to 3 kittens. Luckily, all of these were males. Also, luckily, I had been working with the original cats and they were no longer fully feral, so when the time came, I was able to scoop up those 3 babies and bring them in to find homes. One of them moved to Ohio to live with my sister-in-law, the other 2 stayed with me. That was in December of 2017.
At this point, I had learned about TNR and started volunteering with Feral Cat Assistance Program, a local stray cat spay/neuter program. I started trapping the cats and bringing them monthly to the clinics to have them fixed and vaccinated. They also received the left ear tip badge of honor, showing that they had gone through a spay/neuter program and had a caregiver.
I was working through the cats in my colony and only had the 2 original mommy cats to trap. And of course, because cats, on the day that I was trying to trap the last 2 females, they BOTH gave birth within an hour a part. One had 4 kittens, the other had 7 kittens. In a matter of an hour, I now had 11 new kittens. That was April of 2018. So, from September of 2016 to April of 2018 1 un-spayed female had 22 offspring. I guess I was lucky that they were all black. Most black cats are males. Out of the 22 cats, only 7 were females. The offspring number would/could have been a lot higher.
The bright side of this story, because you always should look for the positive in a negative situation, is that I started volunteering with the local spay/neuter program that I mentioned above. Feral Cat Assistance Program (FCAP) is a local non-profit that provides low cost spay and neuter to feral and stray cats. This amazing program has been in service for over 25 years and is trying to help get a control on the cat overpopulation.
We are all volunteers, even our veterinarians. Newbie trappers can trap our monthly trap classes to learn how to trap. We provide traps to those that have signed up for the monthly clinic. Most months we have between 60-70 cats come through our clinic. In the 4 years that I have been volunteering, we have never had less than 50 cats and we have had up to 80+ cats. Months during Kitten Season, we will have 2 clinics a month. We did 885 in 2021. It is physically and emotionally tiring work, but it is so very rewarding knowing that we have given these cats a chance at a better, healthier life.
One of my “when I win the lottery” dreams is to open a permanent spay/neuter clinic that will operate 2-3 times a week. Kittens are being born faster than we can shut down the “kitten factories”. People are starting to understand the importance of low cost spay/neuter programs. The mentality of “it’s just an outside cat” is being replaced by “if you feed them, fix them”. There are a lot more resources around than there were just 6 years ago. A quick Google search for ‘low cost spay/neuter programs’ pulls up a vast list of resources. A good one is Low cost spay and neuter services | SpayUSA | Animal League. You can enter your Zip Code and it will give you a list of programs in your area. If there are not any programs in your area, they have resources to start your own program. Be the change!
In closing, I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes by an amazing man.
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot. Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
— Dr. Seuss
We must work together to solve this problem. It is not fair to these cats who suffer because of human carelessness.
