How to determine the gender of the kitten?

Everyone knows that in order to determine the gender of the kitten, you need to look under his tail. There are testicles - male, no - female. It's easy to say this when a kitten is short-haired, and all the primary sexual characteristics are, so to speak, "present." With kittens of longhaired breeds it is more difficult. In addition, most of the kittens-boys testicles descend into the scrotum not immediately after birth, but at the age of 4-12 weeks.

This may seem paradoxical, but a newborn kitten is easier to determine sex than an animal that has had several days. At newborn kittens the wool has not yet had time to dry and rise, which means that the "review" will be better.

So, gently put the kitty belly on yourpalm, gently lift the tail and look under it. Under the tail there will be two holes: one of them (the one that is located higher, closer to the tail) is anal, and the second - the genitourinary one. In females, they are located near, at a distance of not more than 5 mm. In males, the distance is approximately 1 cm and may increase with age.

At the age of about 10 days, when the kitten will bealready fluffy, you can determine its sex all along the same distance between the anal and genital openings (in females it will still be less), and also by the fact that in males the strip between these holes is hairy, and in females it is practically devoid of hair, "bald".

When the kitten grows older, it will be possible to determine its gender by the form of the genitourinary opening. In cats, the genital opening (vulva) is a vertical slot, which is located close to the anus.

In cats, at a distance of about a centimeter from the anus, there is a scrotum with testicles (similar to two small swellings), and just below the scrotum is a hole in the foreskin, it small and round. We remind you that until the age of 1-4 months the testicles may not be visible, because they have not yet had time to descend into the scrotum from the abdominal cavity.

Of course, It is easiest to determine the gender of the kitten when it is possible to compare it with other kittens from the same litter - in most cases there are kittens in the litterboth sexes, and the difference between females and males is more obvious. In long-haired breeds of cats, the sex should be determined as early as possible, because then the long coat will close both the anal and urogenital orifice, and it will be difficult to determine the gender of the kitten.

Adult cats and cats of some breeds may differ in size, constitution, muzzle shape and even color. For example, tortoiseshell color is inherent mainly in females (due to the inheritance of genes responsible for tortoiseshell color), and in males it is extremely rare and indicates genetic disorders.

However, determine the sex of the animal in appearancecan only be an experienced breeder, and even then not always. A beginner "cat-cat" should not try to determine the sex of the kitten according to the peculiarities of behavior, the expression of the face and the way the animal urinates. All these methods are extremely unreliable.

In fact, it is not so difficult to determine the gender of a kitten. The main thing is to focus not on the presence or absence of testicles, which a small kitten may not yet be visible, but on distance between the anal and genital orifices and their shape (a cat has two points, a cat has a point and a vertical slot).