How Old Do Kittens Have To Be Before They Can Be Fixed

Cats protection advise neutering your cat at four months of age or younger.

How old do kittens have to be before they can be fixed. Finally waiting until after the first heat somewhere between eight to twelve months of age he says. Standard spay and neuter at five to six months. For an era the youngest age a kitten could be spayed was generally accepted to be around 6 months. While the ideal adoption age may vary somewhat from breed to breed and even among individual kittens within a breed or a litter most kittens should not be taken away from their mothers before 12 weeks of age and a kitten should never be separated from its family before it is 10 weeks old.

A female cat can produce up to six kittens three times a year. Others arguing that cats need more time to develop before removing their sex organs say that spaying and neutering should occur closer to when the cat is four months old. But that s changed in recent years. There is some debate about when cats should be fixed.

Often cats are neutered too late in life which unfortunately contributes to the number of unwanted cats in the uk. Both of these can be fatal. Pregnancy and birth can carry significant risks to a cat. The aspca says spaying procedures in clinics and hospitals are routinely conducted on female kittens as young as 6 to 8 weeks old well before the onset of the first heat cycle which doesn t usually occur in cats until age 4 months at the earliest.

Some experts suggest getting a kitten spayed or neutered when the cat is as young as two months old. Find out more about kitten neutering in our guide or find a vet. Spaying cats especially if it s done when they re young greatly reduces the risk of them getting breast cancer and infection of the womb called pyometra. While you can have a kitten fixed as young as 6 weeks old the procedure is usually performed when your little one reaches 8 to 12 weeks of age.