Cat Mating

The queen choses the male by presenting herself to him in mating position. She is laying down, but holding her hindquaters up, possibly trippeling with her hindlegs and with the tail aside. The male will approche her from behind, graping her neck to make her hold still. Now the male will be pushing the female into position using his fore and espasially hindlegs. This also is to keep the females hindquaters up.

Some females, espacially unexpiriend are likly to lower their hindquaters again, so it's difficult for the male to penetrate. In such situation, he will start trusting to find his belongings. If the Tom is unexpirienced, too, that can last a while. Once the position is correct, the male is most likely to ensure he has a good lovebite of the females neck before he penetrates. In many cases he will ejaculate immidiatly or rest for a few seconds without trusting. It is believed that the cat's anterior vagina will contract strongly, once stimulated. Maybe because of the barbs causing pain to the female, humping is not so commen among housecats. Although it seems to be neccessary for the Tom if he is to deliver a second, third or even fourth load. Very much unlike lions housecats do not have that kind of stamina. It would be unusual for a tom to mate more then two to four times a day. But the female surely will, if there are enough males present. In fact, the kittens of any resulting litter may well have diverent fathers.

Copulatory Ovulation

When a queen is bred, the tom's penis stimulates the anterior vagina and causes changes in brain chemistry via neurological and hormonal reflexes. A surge of luteinizing hormone (LH), produced by the pituitary gland in the brain, occurs within 15 minutes of each breeding. The maximum LH levels are reached after eight to 12 breedings. There is a minimum amount of stimulation needed to induce LH release, and this threshold level varies from cat to cat. Only about 50% of queens will ovulate after one breeding; however, most will ovulate after at least four breedings. By one day later, the LH level has returned to normal. The more times the queen is bred, the higher the level of LH, and a sufficient increase in LH is necessary to cause ovulation.

Ovulation typically occurs 30-50 hours after copulation. The eggs are viable for only about 25 hours after ovulation. Some queens do not release adequate levels of LH despite repeated breedings with fertile tomcats, but mating the queen several days later during the same estrus may result in ovulation. So the timing of breeding in the estrus cycle is important to achieve ovulation; either too early or too late may not achieve ovulation and fertilization (the best days to breed are days two to five of estrus).

Following ovulation, progesterone levels rise within 24 hours, reaching 20 ng/ml at the end of estrus and a high of 40 to 50 ng/ml by 15 to 25 days post-ovulation. If the breeding is infertile, progesterone declines to under 2 ng/ml by day 40 to 50. Throughout a pregnancy, progesterone is maintained at levels over 40 ng/ml until approximately day 50, when the level drops back to under 1 ng/ml by term. Progesterone is not needed during the last 10 days or so of a pregnancy. As for other induced ovulators, the CL is the primary source of progesterone throughout pregnancy in the cat. The placenta produces little or no progesterone.

Fertilization occurs in the oviduct and then the fertilized eggs pass into a uterine horn by day four or five. Implantation in the uterine lining occurs 10 to 12 days after ovulation. Before they implant, the embryos space themselves out along the uterine horns so the developing fetuses will not be crowded. They may migrate from one horn to the other. In this process, some embryos are lost. The rate of implantation varies from 50% to over 90%, depending on how many eggs are ovulated. The average litter size is reported to be 4 to 4.5 kittens, but this is highly variable. The largest litters come from queens with the most ovulations.