When he is very young, it is not always easy to determine the sex of his kitten because their genitals are, at this age, still very similar. However, determining the sex of your kitten early is important, in particular to choose a suitable name for it or to prepare for the cat’s arrival in its new home. Find out how to sex your kitten from an early age below.

Sexing a kitten is not always an easy act, and even the most experienced people can sometimes be wrong. When the cat is less than two months old, the differences between the genitals of the male cat and the female cat can be quite subtle.

Sexing kittens should be done in the quickest and most gentle way possible so as not to stress or disturb the kittens. It is best to have someone help you to hold the kitten while you lift its tail.

Sexing should be done indoors, in a heated and well-lit place. In all cases, care should be taken to avoid handling kittens that are too young. Indeed, before they are three or four weeks old, the risk is that we will impregnate them too much with our smell and that the mother will stop taking care of and feeding them. By being well prepared, we can avoid separating the kittens from their mother for too long.

Several criteria exist in kittens, but none of them allow to be 100% sure of the sex of the kitten, because they allow only a relative estimate. The easiest way is obviously to be able to compare the sex of the kitten to that of another whose sex we know.

If you are unsure of what to do and are afraid of harming or bothering the kittens, do not hesitate to seek the help of your veterinarian, who will allow you to be sure of your diagnosis.

The most reliable criterion for sexing kittens is also the easiest and fastest to observe. To do this, you just have to position the kitten upright on its four legs, directing its head away from you. You just need to gently lift the kitten’s tail without pulling on it, to observe the shape of the genitals.

This form varies between male and female cats. In a female, the external genitalia is shaped like a small vertical slit, whereas it will look more like a small circle in the male. The whole “anus and genital apparatus” therefore forms one (i) in the female, while it will form a (:) in the male.

Another criterion for distinguishing between males and females is the distance that exists between the anus and the external genitalia of a cat. In the female, the genital tract is found directly under the anus, while it will be separated by the testicles in the male. Thus, by observing the sex of the kitten from behind, by lifting the tail, we will have the impression that the female genitalia is higher, closer to the anus.

This distance obviously changes depending on the growth of the cat. We estimate that around 2 months, the distance between the anus and the vulva of a female cat is between 0,5 and less than 1 cm, while it will rather be 1.2 to 1.4 cm in the male cat. .

The testes are only present in the male cat. When the kitten is born, these testicles are present in the kitten’s abdominal cavity and will gradually migrate to the scrotum, their final location. Sometimes they descend into the scrotum when the cat is very young (less than two months old). When it is not possible to see them directly, try to feel the area between the anus and the cat’s genitalia. If we feel two soft, leaky masses slipping through our fingers, then it must be the testicles.

By looking carefully at the space between the genital opening and the anus, we can also sometimes observe a small pocket or a small bag that corresponds to the scrotum. He then indicates that the kitten is a male. However, the absence of visualization of the testes or the scrotum is not enough to say that the kitten is a female.

The color of the coat is not a reliable criterion for sexing a kitten. According to popular beliefs, tabby cats are more often males than females. It turns out that this has never been proven and does not necessarily seem scientifically verified.

However, some coat colors are linked to sex chromosomes and therefore depend on the sex of the cat. This is particularly the case for the tricolor (cat with large black, white and orange spots) or tortoiseshell (black cat marbled with brown, sometimes with white). The genes for these colors are carried by the X chromosome and must be present twice to be expressed. Only females who have two X chromosomes can therefore wear these colors. If a kitten is born tricolor or tortoiseshell, it will therefore necessarily be a female.

Behavior is not an effective criterion for determining the sex of the kitten. Indeed, before puberty, there is no difference in behavior between males and females. Neither do they exist in young sterilized animals.

In female cats, signs of heat may be observed after puberty, from the age of 6 to 10 months. Males, on the other hand, tend to mark their territory with horizontal jets of urine, which are particularly fragrant. If your cat exhibits any of these behaviors, then it is quite easy to determine her gender.