Why don’t people want male kittens?

[chemenger]

We have a glut of male kittens in our rescue at the moment, literally every kitten we have is male. They’re all totally adorable. So why do we also have a glut of potential adopters who won’t even look at anything but female kittens? I can’t believe we’re struggling to rehome kittens when we have rehomed our entire stock of adult cats, we’re in a situation where we are clogged up with kittens.

I should add that our boy started spraying several months after he was neutered.

Is your intake of kittens (excluding those born at the shelter) roughly 50:50?

When we were looking for kittens, we found most litters being advertised were either all male or mostly male with just one female.

Our theory was that these adverts were probably from unethical breeders who were going to keep all (or most) female kittens to provide the next generation. Obviously we were very careful to find a situation where we could be absolutely confident that we weren't supporting a kitten farm.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that the majority of abandoned kittens that make it to shelters would be skewed towards being males, due to whatever kittens the unethical breeders couldn't sell or otherwise make use of.

We wanted two females because it is known that female kittens are less territorial and have a smaller territory range. We live in an area with a very high cat population and thought that we would have less problems with them getting into fights with their neighbours than if we had males. Our previous cats, who came to us aged 1yo, were a male and a female and the male was always getting into fights and getting injuries and abscesses but the female never did.

I've had 6 cats (two at a time) with only 1 female and I can't say I ever noticed a difference or thought about whether they were male or female. Does their sex make a difference once they've been neutered?

We have had, in the last month, 11 kittens, with 2 females. I’m not sure where they all came from, my two were found in a box on a skip (see my other thread). Discarding male kittens and keeping females for breeding sounds depressingly plausible.

Where are you?

I am looking to rescue a preferably male kitten.

I know I'm being picky but if he's black that would be perfect.

Grew up with F cat who was v sweet in nature, and then got a M cat when she was around 6 or so. He was an absolute trouble maker and stunk the place out before we could get him neutered, even after that he would (and still does) farts when he gets too excited bless him.

My friend gifted me a kitten when I started looking for my own, a little boy. He is a very affectionate, loyal and loving soul but my word is he hard work. He also stunk the place out, regularly gets in scraps, destroyed my house...

We are now considering getting another, but will def be a female!! (sorry) - Although this is in part due to the fact I don't think our boy would appreciate another male on the scene, this could a factor which is deterring others from picking a male.

We have only ever had boys.

I happen to have a very affectionate female cat but in my experience most people prefer male cats because they say they're more affectionate usually.

But people don't want the black ones and they REALLY don't want the shy/timid ones

Our Bro/Sis pair are jet black young adults and he was so shy when he arrived (I was adviced about his shy nature before we even went to visit him)

He has blossomed into a lovely , friendly (still under the petticoats of his sister) little cat who loves my DD, his garden and his weird feather collecting habit .

My DC are late teens /young adults so we knew our house was fairly quiet . We were all on board. And if he was still timid we'd respect that .

(And sadly male animals in general are harder to home . DD and I kept guinea-pigs for years and males do have their challenges ....but so lovely)

I mean - look at this .....

Taken on Hallowe'en .
Contained in the bedroom for 5 minutes while DH went in the loft .
If looks could kill!

Before the little face , it was little furry legs with claws poking out .

This is our female ........the male was parked on the windowsill looking all Witches Cat Like

Will a boy cat tend to spray in the house if not neutered? I have a 5 month old boy house kitten/cat. Never had a boy before and not sure whether to get him done or not. Vet said he'd be smelly if we didn't.

Part of me thinks I could offer him as a stud cat as he's a beautiful, registered pedigree but then feel conflicted about breeding. So am sitting on the fence at the minute.

I would also be interested to know where you are. I have just lost my 18 year old boy so could rehome another.

All the male cats we've had have been super affectionate. The only cats I've known to be aggressive or moody have always been female

It's also true that both male and female cats spray

I have three boys all black they aren't really lap cats as such but they lie by you and groom You

Stupiddriver1 yes an unneutered male is likely to spray and have foul smelling wee and be very frustrated. So frustrated that he would be likely to jump out of a 5 storey window. And the world doesn't need any more cats - regardless of what fancy breed they are. Get him done.

Unneutered male cats will spray. It stinks to high heaven and is also very corrosive. A stray who got into our house sprayed on the metal legs of our tv stand and it ate through the chrome. An unneutered male will also have a very strong drive to find a mate, and will do anything to escape and find one. It’s unequivocally better for them to be neutered, even though it would do me out of a hobby trying yo rehome their offspring!

I think breeders often keep their stud males outside in pens because they are hard to live with.

even though it would do me out of a hobby trying yo rehome their offspring!

Sadly , I don't think there will ever be a world where there isn't a need for Rescue.

Brace yourself for the next wave of ginger and white "Anna&Elsa" cats being surrendered after the new Frozen 2 film ( it's been six years so a whole new audience )
I noticed loads of " Here's Anna and Elsa" guinea-pigs after the last film being offered on Gumtree because "the kids lost interest" and unfortunately guineas and cats are two animals that are common in these colours .

On the predation question, my boy cat is an absolute killer where prey is concerned. Birds are his particular area of interest. However, he is shy with strangers and absolutely ADORES his own humans. At home he is the softest, sweetest snuggliest baby ever. He wants to sleep near your face and cuddle up to your face, he loves kissing on the lips (actually have to push him off! ), also loves having his belly rubbed.

Black male cats are always my first choice in the rescue which is lucky (for me, not them ) because there are always loads to choose from. There’s still a lot of weird superstition around black cats and I also think people overlook them in the ‘Instagram era’ because they are an absolute arseache to get a decent photo of.

Our cats have all been indoors and no kittens (like to rescue adult cats), but I have found the males to be more affectionate. We don't really 'choose', though, prefer to let the cat choose us, IYKWIM, you just get a feeling and think, yep, it's going to be this one.

Dontalltalkatonce It's the 'letting the cats choose' that means that the timid ones get ignored. Although I completely understand why people do it of course

I like the shy ones. I like a challenge and they are often the most rewarding of relationships once the cat comes out of its shell.

chemenger
You could try the Battersea approach. We were allocated two black male kittens we hadn't met.
It would have been churlish to turn them down (I think Battersea saw us coming )

And yet Grumpy you've been allocated a perfectly adequate Bengal and you refuse to play ball?

#TCwantstomovein