INTRODUCTION

Have you ever found a kitten? Or maybe it was given to you as a gift when it was very small, and you don't know if it is male or female? That's normal, when they are small it's difficult to tell. Although if you look closely you may be able to find out. Maybe you know that if the kitten has three colours it is female, an almost exact rule that is justified by genetics, specifically, the sex chromosomes.

HOW TO SEX MY KITTEN?

When kittens are very young the genital area is not very developed, that's why sometimes it is easy to confuse the gender of our kitten, confirms Bárbara Sansalvador Villar from the Kivet clinic in Aribau, Barcelona. And she gives us the guidelines to find out:

• We will lift the tail and just below the anus we will find the genitals.
  
  

• If it is a female we will see a small vertical slit which is the vulva.
  
  

• If it is a male we will find the foreskin with a small round opening which is the urethra, and just above it the scrotal sac where the testicles are. In very young kittens the testicles are barely developed so the scrotal sac is sometimes not clearly visible.
  
  
  
  

GENETIC CURIOSITIES

The X chromosome is responsible for the ‘painting’ of the kitten's coat black or orange. We know that females have two X chromosomes, so ‘they’ can have both shades: black and orange and a third colour, white, which is determined by another chromosome, the S chromosome.

Therefore, female cats can have the colours black, orange (XX) and white (S), while male cats (XY) can only have two shades: black (X) and white (S) or orange and white. But never three, with some exceptions due to chromosomal alterations. This is Klinefelter's syndrome, which can also occur in humans, and causes males or boys born with this alteration to have an extra X chromosome. That is, instead of being XY, they are XXY, which can lead to tricolour cats.

WHEN IS IT RECOMMENDED TO NEUTER MY KITTEN?

Both can be neutered from 6 months of age, as physical development will have been completed.

Neutering is, of course, a necessary option for our kittens to live better and to prevent some diseases. But also, if you have decided to adopt a cat, you have to take into account other aspects of its environment and health so that your pet grows up happily.

CONCLUSION

When they are still kittens, there are no relevant differences in physical appearance between males and females beyond the differences in the genital area. But with the onset of puberty and the action of sex hormones, cats begin to develop so-called secondary sexual characteristics. These traits make it possible to recognise the sex of a cat simply by its physical appearance, although the differences are not marked in all felines.