How can I tell the gender of a cat?
Recognising the gender of a cat can be quite a challenge. After all, the differences between a female cat and a male cat are not all that great. This is especially true for kittens, in which the sexual organs are not yet properly developed.
How you can still tell the gender of a cat is explained below.
How to tell a kitten’s gender
If your cat has just had kittens, you will certainly be curious and would like to know the gender of the newborn kittens. However, as the kittens hardly differ at all visually, it is quite difficult to tell the sex of a kitten.
In any case, a quick glance at the four-legged friends is not enough for this purpose. Instead, you have to expose the sexual organs of the cats to see which gender they are.
Be careful with the kittens when determining their gender
When determining the gender, keep in mind that this process can be particularly stressful for young animals. You should never separate a kitten from the mother cat for more than a few minutes.
Make sure the kitten is warm and comfortable. If the kitten does not put up with the procedure at all, stop the whole thing and take them back to their mother. After all, the well-being of the little four-legged friend is the most important thing and you will still be able to determine the gender of the young cat in a week or two.
Determine the gender of the cat by looking at the sexual organs
A look at the sexual organs allows you to determine the cat's gender. Immediately after birth, this is usually difficult because of the cat’s small size. From the age of about eight weeks, however, you should be able to determine the gender of a kitten without any problems.
If you lift the tail of the four-legged friend, you will see a small, round opening underneath, regardless of the gender. This is the anus of the animal. In female cats, the vagina is located directly underneath, which has the shape of a small slit.
Male cats also have another opening below the anus. This is the penis opening, into which the penis is always retracted, except during mating. In contrast to the vagina of the female cat, the penis opening of the male cat is round. In addition, the distance to the anus is slightly larger and in-between lies their scrotum.
The testicles of male kittens are still tiny at the beginning and therefore not always easily recognisable. If the male kitten lacks testicles due to castration, this is of course also true for older animals.
How do you recognise the gender of adult cats?
Despite all the similarities, there are definitely gender-related differences in adult cats that can help to determine the gender. Male cats are usually larger and more muscular than female cats. They also have a rather round and large head, whereas cats usually have a smaller and narrower head.
However, this is often of little help in determining the cat’s gender if you only have one four-legged friend in front of you and therefore lack the means of comparison. For an undoubted determination of the gender of adult cats, you have to take a look at the sexual organs, just as you do with kittens.
Determining the sex of a cat by the colour of their coat
It may seem improbable at first that the sex of a cat can be determined by the colour of its coat. In fact, however, this is possible at least for some colourings. Red cats, for example, are almost always males. Female cats with red fur are very rare.
If the cat's coat has a tortoiseshell pattern, you can be almost 100% sure that it is a female. This is because your cat must have two X chromosomes for this coat pattern. As you may know, this is only the case in females, while males have one Y and one X chromosome. A coat with a tortoiseshell pattern can therefore only occur in male cats if there is a genetic defect.
Recognising sex in cats - our conclusion
As you can see, it is not so easy to tell the sex of a cat. The colour of the fur of newborn kittens can sometimes give you a first hint.
But to determine the sex of a cat without any doubt, it is usually necessary to take a closer look at their sexual organs. As a rule, the sex of kittens can be easily identified in this way until about eight weeks after birth at the latest, so that you will then really know without a doubt whether you are looking at a female cat or a male.
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