Do you know how often your cats go in heat? If you rear a cat for the first time, you might have observed some significant changes occur within your beloved cat in a certain interval of time. That could be a kind of restlessness, moving hither and thither, saying mau-mau almost all the time like those.

So, why does this happen, what’s the reason behind this – question must arise in case of keeping a cat as a domestic cat.

However, that’s nothing but most probably those symptom imply that your cat is in heat.  So, as you are confining your cat in a domestic environment, this is important for you to know how you should take proper care in this situation.

In this article, I shall cover some more areas along with the issue – how often do cats go into heat.

Firstly, I shall discuss some relevant topics about heat in cat.

Let’s get started.

How often cats go in heat cycle?

What does cat heat mean?

Heat in cat means the certain age of a female cat when it reach in puberty. Puberty is synonymously known as sexual maturity.

In veterinary science we call it estrous cycle. In case of human being, this term is menstrual cycle. So, if you bring a kitten at its early stage and start to keep it at your home as a domestic pet, after few months the time will come when it will reach its puberty.

This is what the people call – cat in heat generally.

When cats come in heat first time?

Normally, in an average, cats come into heat at six month of age. Though this depends on a number factors, such as seasonality, length of day light hours, nutritional condition and etc.

However, this is difficult to say accurately the time when cats come in heat for the first time. It is also observed that cat’s heat cycle starts as early as four and half month of their age.

This is to remember that, once the first heat starts, your kitten will continue to be heat again and again recurrently. Until she is allowed to mate or being spayed. In case of mating, once it conceive, the cycle will stop until parturition or giving birth of new kitten.

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How often cats go in heat?

Yes, it’s a good question to know how often your cats can go into heat. You have to know the normal physiological phenomenon by which you can make a comparison with your cat in real time situation.

Now, lets talk about the type of heat or estrous cycle first for better understanding. It is divided as two broad categories that are mono estrous and poly estrous.

Mono estrous are such type of cycle where there is one estrous cycle per year. For example dog is of this type of animal.

On the other hand, poly estrous refers to those animal whose estrous cycle occurs more than once in a year. Cat is known as that poly estrous animal.

So, probably, you got the answer for the question how often cats go in heat. From above discussion, you got know that cats go into heat more than once in a year.

In other word, experts say that polyestrous animals like cat can have multiple cycle within the breeding season.

Breading season in case of cat normally refers to the warmer weather and the time when the length of day increases.

Another interesting thing about cat is that it doesn’t have menopause. It means after reaching puberty, the heat cycle continue over the period of time even for a senior cats.

However, there are some other factors that can influence the frequency of getting heat for cats.  The most common factors are environmental, geographic, length of daylight and temperature.

Accordingly, another important factor out of these is the seasonality. This means, cats can also come in heat during a particular season of the year. In this way, usually cats heat cycle starts from January until late fall in the Northern Hemisphere.

In case of tropical region or in an indoor environment, the heat cycle of cat may run all the year round. This is because of high number of daylight hours.

So, in a nutshell, addressing the question – how often do cats go into heat; I ‘ll can answer roughly – at every two to three weeks interval cats can go in heat during the breeding season that could last from spring season to fall depending on the above mentioned factors.

You also need to know about the stages of cat’s heat cycle as well.

Let’s talk about this now.

How long cats heat cycle last?

If your cat doesn’t become pregnant or spayed, cat’s heat cycle will continue at every three to four weeks interval. Every cycle may last five to seven days in average.

The cycle will start when the age of your cats becomes four to five months.

So, may be the message is clear to the cat parents regarding – how often cats go in heat.

Please feel free to ask any question through comments if you have any.