Cat Breeding

You take in a stray cat and have simply been too busy to schedule an appointment to have her spayed. Then one day you come home to find her howling constantly and rolling around on the floor. Has she gone mad? No, she’s gone into heat, or estrus.

Think your cat will miss having sex? The truth is that sex is a purely instinctual drive in cats and they don’t get any pleasure or enjoyment from it. Breeding isn’t pleasurable; it’s instinctual. And it can be downright painful for them.

Lets not forget that our cats aren’t human, they can’t write ‘This Is The Property of Simba’ or ‘Please do not touch’, like we do with our property. The cat has a more, well how can I put it, a more natural way of declaring his intent to own something, it’s a simple method, the cat backs up to a vertical surface, holds up its tail and sprays urine in several short bursts.

Imagine my horror, when I was researching into ‘Spaying’. The estimated number of cats and dogs that are brought into shelters throughout the United States is between 8 and 10 million.

Inbreeding is the mating together of closely related cats, for example mother/son, father/daughter, sibling/sibling matings and half-sibling/half-sibling. It is the pairing of animals which are more closely related than the average population. For breeders, it is a useful way of fixing traits in a breed – the pedigrees of some exhibition cats show that many of their forebears are closely related.

This article looks at several areas of what is known as ‘reproduction technology’ and how it could affect cat breeders and cat owners. These pros and cons will also apply to other pets. Reproduction technology includes cloning, artificial insemination, egg donation, embryo transfer and IVF. I have basic knowledge and understanding, but do not claim to be an expert in these fields. I have written this so that an owner or breeder with little or no prior knowledge can understand it. I have included general interest comments about some of the wider issues of cloning in species other than cats.