HOME BREEDING IN ANIMAL WELFARE CONTEXT
Over last decade having cats as pets gained increased popularity in Jordan. Pet shops multiply, offering all kinds of kittens as adorable and affordable gifts or toys for children. Many people order pets from abroad and start breeding them at home. Streets are getting filled with pedigree and mix-breed cats that have low chances of surviving in the hostile environment, while castration is often considered as cruelty and action against nature.
We will talk about castration in a separate article. Here we will focus on breeding precisely.
There are several reasons not to breed cats, and all of them are very important. The most obvious one is quantity. There are far more cats in this world than people willing to give them home, care, and attention. The more new cats are born, the less chance those already born have of ever finding a family. This world truly doesn't need new cats. Neither pedigree nor mongrel. Every kitten you intentionally produce is a chance of survival taken away from a cat that had no choice but to be born. Without exception. Even if you don't throw your kitten away, but find a home for it, whoever adopts it from you won't adopt one from a shelter or the street. So, by allowing your domestic cats to reproduce, you indirectly kill those born in the streets.
The second reason is the pet's health. Firstly, cats have hormones that work non-stop. These animals are programmed to reproduce constantly, right up until their death. Males generally want a female cat 24/7 their entire life; they don't have cycles. And giving a male cat an access to a female cat once or twice a year is pure cruelty to the animal. It suffers, it's in pain, it tries to escape, it does, and firstly, it inseminates numerous females (meaning producing thousands of kittens that die), and secondly, it risks its health and life. Abstinence means illness, cancer. A female cat's cycle is set up like this: estrus-insemination-pregnancy-birth-nursing-estrus-insemination... and so on in a circle. There's no respite for recovery. A female cat is attracting to a male cat even during the nursing period, and when she becomes pregnant, in most cases, she simply abandons her kittens and goes on to bear more. And so on until she dies from this constant birthing. That's what happens if you follow nature's example. If you only mate your domestic cat occasionally, she will have empty estrus cycles, which may lead to pyometra and cancer. This is in addition to the fact that abstinence is torment and pain for a cat. So, it turns out that, no matter how you look at it, both abstinence and pregnancy are bad for a cat. And only spaying frees it from this torment and allows it to live a long, quality life.
Another important consideration is the health of the kittens themselves. People who allow their domestic cats to breed typically don't bother choosing a partner, don't check genetics and health, compatibility, and risks. They also don't receive felinology training before allowing the cat to give birth, and as a result, are unable to recognize the problem and help the animal. These "home breeders" bury countless miscarriages, sick kittens, cats that failed to give birth, whose kittens died and started decomposing inside, or cats that hemorrhage during labor. Usually, everyone is good at breeding until they run into problems. And as soon as complications arise during pregnancy and birth, no one is happy to pay thousands in bills for C-sections, oxygen boxes, and so on. Animals die because of human ignorance.
Kittens themselves, however, are a different story. Especially when people start thoughtlessly experimenting with crossing different breeds, completely unaware that each breed has some kind of anomaly, a typical problem, a disability. Some breeds are predisposed to heart problems, others are predisposed to kidney problems, joint problems, or spinal problems, and so on. Each breed has an inherent defect. And if it comes down to it, they must be bred with extreme caution, at least according to the rules, not blindly. While domestic breeding is always a gamble. Which defect will prevail, what kind of disabled cat will be born. And all these illnesses come out with age, so the breeders might not even know how many living souls have been condemned to torment by them.
If you trully love your pet, castrating it is your only right choice.