Help! My 3 Month Cat Is In Heat!

Our man in Havana

Took in a TINY approx 6-7 week old kitten the week before xmas - it is ginger & white & we assumed it was a boy! Took it to the vet on monday due to a swollen lip - who told us it was female!! Jasper was given a shot of antibotics - & is now in heat! How can a ickle baby be in heat?? MY DH barely grabbed her (as she escaped into the garden) before 2 tom cats got her! Is there anything I can do to stop the heat? Can the vet give her anything?


She is sooooooooooo tiny - I do not want her to get hurt! Luckily all my other cats are spayed & neutered - I have 10 in total with Jasper who was dumped on us after roaming into the yard of a farmer who keeps & races grey hounds! The kitten was very nearly caught by the dogs. I love my baby Jasper sooooooooo much! We are very very worried she is so ickle!

peckerhead

Is there anything I can do to stop the heat? Can the vet give her anything?

Nope. And she's too young to be neutered. Keep her inside!

[P.S. Nice scratch-marks on the back of your hand....! ]

FranknFurter

Fraid not babe.
Had the same problem with one of mine way back.
Only thing to do is keep her inside.
hehe, you could try make some kinda cat-chastity-belt lol, believe it or not, iv seen such things for dogs in petstores here in dublin *rolleyes

Arcadian

She's not too young to be spayed, get her done now and problem solved.

Gordon Gekko

She can be done now, there's a growing body of veterinary opinion in the US that is finding that kittens done as young as 8-10 weeks recover from the surgery much quicker, with far fewer side-effects than those done at the traditional 6-7 month stage. 3 months is plenty old to get her done.

Our man in Havana

Took her to the vets tonight & she is being spayed in the morning - Sooooooo WORRIED.

Gordon Gekko

Best of luck! Let us know how the little cutie gets on.

Nala

And another word of advice:

Ginger cats are often females! We've had several. The link between gender and colour for Ginger is nowhere near as extreme as that for Tortoiseshell (~99% of Tortoiseshells are female).

morgana

So, how's little cutie after its op? Hope everything went OK and little one is recovering well

Our man in Havana

Jasper, came home tonight. She is fine only has 1 stitch to come out. She is up and about eating and having fun.

skink

Nala wrote:

And another word of advice:

Ginger cats are often females! We've had several. The link between gender and colour for Ginger is nowhere near as extreme as that for Tortoiseshell (~99% of Tortoiseshells are female).

Out of wonder where did you get these statistics?

Our man in Havana

Actually most ginger cats are males, females are very rare and usually sterile.

RobertFoster

Bond-007 wrote:

Actually most ginger cats are males, females are very rare and usually sterile.

Would it not be more common on females give that they've two X chromosomes while males have only one?

wikipedia wrote:

The sex-linked orange gene, O, determines if there will be orange fur. This gene only appears on the X chromosome.

More

Our man in Havana

Interesting stuff.

Arcadian

Yes the 'O' gene only appears on the X chromosome but a female must inherit 2 O genes to be ginger whereas a male need only inherit 1 which is why most gingers are male.

Raiser

Saw in your photos that you're slowly introducing her to telecoms equipment. My Tabby is 18 months old and can make & test CAT 5 cables flawlessly. It was a long process but ultimately worth it.

Shes now one of Eircoms most gifted Engineers - Since her contract started she has almost doubled their productivity.