Do cats have periods?
People search on Google for an answer to the question: “do cats have periods?”. This is my attempt to answer it.
The menstrual cycle includes the release of a nutrient-rich lining (endometrium) within the female’s uterus if pregnancy does not occur. This is menstruation. The word “period” is a euphemism for menstruation. The endometrium is designed to cushion and nourish the developing foetus if one develops.
Menstruation occurs periodically. It occurs in the females of certain mammals; one of them, of course, being humans. In humans the “period” can be seen (it is “overt”). This form of menstruation is thought to almost exclusively occur in primates of which the human is one species. It also occurs in bats and the elephant shrew.
Females of other species of mammal advertise their fertility when they go into heat or oestrus. At this time they’re receptive to copulation. If fertilisation does not take place the endometrium is absorbed by the uterus. Some people refer to this as “covert menstruation” (hidden period).
A cat is a species who has heat (estrus) cycles whereas humans have menstrual cycles. Animals (including humans) that have menstrual cycles shed the endometrium whereas animals that have estrus cycles reabsorb it.
Therefore, the answer to the question, in the title to his article, would appear to be that cats do have periods of a sort but they are hidden. The difficulty in using the word “period” in reference to the domestic cat is that the word was created by humans for humans. Therefore strictly speaking it is inapplicable to cats.
Note: vaginal discharge in cats and dogs is not a period.
Source: Wikipedia for the fundamentals! If I have this wrong please tell me in a comment. I wish a woman had written this for me 😉 .
So….that’s the Cabbage Patch theory out of the window then?
Female humans are born with a finite number of eggs, one of which is released during the menstrual cycle. If fertilisation takes place, the female will become pregnant. At some stage later in the female’s life the supply of eggs will end and the female will enter menopause.
Cats continue producing eggs during their entire life span and cats as old as 19 have produced kittens. They are induced-ovulators, which means that during their heat cycle, the physical act of mating is enough to stimulate the release of an egg ready for fertilisation. If a female mates with several different males during her heat cycle, she will release an egg during each mating. I think I read somewhere that estimates suggest around 70% of litters of kittens, have at least 3 different fathers.
Thanks Michele for that little bit of added info.