The problem of the mammary glands in cats - description, causes, diagnosis. How many nipples should a cat and a cat have

Instruction

The second method is used if kitty has reached one month old. During this period, it becomes possible to determine the sex of a kitten by its muzzle and eyes. In contrast, a more elongated muzzle and almond-shaped eyes. In addition, cats are slightly larger than cats. Try also to determine the sex of the kitten by other indirect signs. For example, - only females, with such a color does not happen. This is due to a set of genes that determines the color of a cat. Males are also usually red. But this method of determining sex is less reliable than the first.

Try to determine the sex of the kitten by its character. Cats are more playful, but they are more devoted to the house and affectionate towards the owner. Cats are more proud and independent, sometimes careless and careless, but more calm and lazy than cats.

Regardless of the method you intend to use, determine the sex of the kitten before you buy or give it as a gift, not after. The exception is found ones, which have to be taken in any case in order to avoid their imminent death. Be sure to indicate the gender of the kitten you have determined in the announcement of its discovery - this will significantly increase the likelihood that the owners will identify it.

note

If the belly is bulging and sharp - there will be a boy, wide and round - a girl.

Helpful advice

If extra hairs appear on the belly of a pregnant woman, there will be a boy, and pigmentation - to a girl. By listening to the heartbeat of your fetus, you can determine who will be: a boy - if the heart beats faster and a girl, if it is slower. chills on early term pregnancy - to a girl, attacks of heat - to a boy.

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Helpful advice

It is difficult enough to accurately determine the sex of a kitten until he turns at least two or three weeks, and even experienced breeders and veterinarians can be wrong about this.

Sources:

Cats are one of the favorite pets. Who doesn't love these cute, clawed, purring creatures? Many begin to prepare in advance for the establishment of a new pet in the house. They buy beautiful bowls, balls, toy mice and dry food, come up with a name and imagine how a cute cat will meet them at home after work, and someone with a mustachioed impudent cat. How about when buying?

You will need

kitty

Instruction

When you come to the nursery or to the house where the baby is given away, carefully take the kitten, turn it back to you, lift its tail and look there. There are two holes there. The hole that is higher and closer to the tail is the anus, below the anus is the urogenital opening.

If the kitten is female, then you will see from above, just under the tail, the anus. From the bottom of the anus there is, as it were, a vertical opening in the form of an oblong slit.

If only recently born, then it will be even easier to determine their gender! In a newborn, the distance between the holes is small, no more than 5 mm. In a boy, this distance is greater - about 1 cm, since between the opening of the anus and foreskin he has a scrotum, which is not yet visible, since it is empty.

As the kittens grow, the difference between females and males will be more noticeable, as male kittens will have testicles that grow, round and become covered with fluffy fur.

It happens that a mistake occurs in determining the sex of a kitten and your cat, growing up, suddenly becomes a cat. This happens mostly with long-haired breeds and if the kitten's testicles have not yet descended.

So, the boy’s kitten will have two holes in the form of dots under the tail, the cat will have a dot, and under it there will be a vertical strip. If there are 2-3 kittens in the house or cattery, then it will be easier to find out the sex of the kitten by comparison.

Experienced holders can determine the sex of a kitten even by the structure of the body and the shape of the muzzle. But even they sometimes make mistakes, so arm yourself with the knowledge you have gained and boldly go after a new household!

note

The boy's kitten will have two holes in the form of dots under the tail, the cat's will have a dot, and under it there will be a vertical strip.

Determine gender british kitten sometimes it can be difficult: their genitals are just beginning to form, and fluffy fur hides so far barely noticeable differences. Nevertheless, you can accurately determine who is in front of you - a cat or a cat, even in the first days of a kitten's life.

Instruction

Take it in your hands, put it on your palm on your tummy and gently lift it up. Below it you will be able to see two holes. Just under the tail is the anus, which looks exactly the same in both males and females and resembles a dot in shape.

If you see a vertical slit of the vulva below the anus, and the structure of the genital organs as a whole resembles an inverted exclamation mark, then you have a future British lady.

When living in the house four-legged friend, it is necessary to pay special attention to his health and development. For example, it does not hurt to find out in detail for yourself how many nipples a cat has, and whether he even has such processes on the surface of his belly.

First of all, it is worth clarifying that the cat has nipples, moreover, there are about the same number of them as cats. There is a misconception that nipples predominate only in cats, which by nature have to give birth to kittens and feed them. breast milk. Doubts about the presence of such processes in specific case is not observed, moreover, the nipples can be seen during the next feeding of kittens.

As for adult cats, this one actual question often remains a mystery, because ideally male body such processes should not be peculiar. As practice shows, the opinion is erroneous, since in adult cats there are about 8 nipples on the surface of the belly. There are also cases when their number reached 6 and 7. Nothing special and surprising, this individual characteristics cat's body.

As far as the nature of this physiological process, it is worth focusing on the fact that the cat's body develops according to the principle of the human, although it has its own radical differences. From this side, the presence of nipples in male cats can be explained. So: in childhood in the animal body, the female X chromosome dominates, so nipples are formed in kittens of any sex. When increased activity demonstrates the Y chromosome, the mammary glands in boys stop developing.

This just explains the phenomenon that cats have nipples, and in the same quantity as in the body of a cat. If desired, they can be counted, but it is important to understand that in the animal body they perform a completely different function. Rather, they do not deliver any benefit or harm to this four-legged pet. If doubts are still present, it is required to lay down domestic cat on his back, raise his paws and count the number of nipples on his stomach. The theoretical answer, as a rule, completely coincides with practical actions.

Cats, like cats, have a set of nipples on their stomachs, but unlike females, the mammary glands are not developed, they are not able to transport breast milk to recently born kittens. This is the only difference, and there are no design features at all.

Answer to main question, whether the cat has nipples, it remains only to discuss this topic in more detail. Such neoplasms on the skin of an animal are barely noticeable, do not stand out on general view wool. Outwardly they color pink, do not stick out, but rather stick out. They do not bother the animal in any way, moreover, the cat does not give special attention their presence.

Such clinical pictures when the nipples of an adult cat become inflamed and sore, requiring immediate veterinary attention. The signs accompanying such symptoms suggest thoughts of an infectious or inflammatory process which may require additional antibiotic treatment.

Mastitis in cats is a well-known diagnosis that can worsen at any age of the animal. Individual glands or all existing ones are affected, and treatment should be comprehensive, it is appropriate only after preliminary diagnosis in a hospital setting. Clinical outcome favorable, but the veterinarian must correctly diagnose, correctly determine the main cause of the progressive pathology.

This once again proves that cats have nipples, and they can also get sick and inflamed. The breeder must be especially vigilant in a given direction, control general state health of your pet, timely perform a visual inspection at home.

If a cat has 8 nipples, then a cat may have 6 or 7. This is physiological features animal organism, and such growths can have different shape and sizes. If the cat has become especially restless, behaves irritably and even aggressively when trying to stroke him, you need to visually inspect his belly, carefully examine the condition of each nipple. In the absence of visual defects, redness and increased swelling, it is necessary to look for another health problem, but not to start this extremely unpleasant and dangerous condition.

Kittens do not climb to the nipples of the cat, they intuitively look for the nipples of their mother. This is explained by the smell of breast milk, which comes from the filled mammary glands. Such actions of the younger generation work at the level of an unconditioned reflex.

Thus, summing up the information about whether cats have nipples and how many there are, you can get an unambiguous answer: mammary glands are present, but do not function, and prevail in the male cat's body in the amount of 6-8 units. Modern veterinarians only confirm this.

With the advent of a cat, cat questions also appear from time to time 🙂
I think avid cat lovers have long known the answer to the question of the number of nipples in their pets, but for beginners it may be interesting. It can be difficult to count it yourself - there is a lot of wool, and not every cat likes to be examined in such detail.

AT background information found about domestic cats:

In the area of the mammary glands, on the stomach and chest of the cat, nipples are located. In females, they serve to feed offspring. The amount of milk in different pairs of nipples is produced differently. Normally, there should be four symmetrically arranged pairs of glands.

But if you go deeper, then many people write on the forums about completely different numbers of nipples - there may be fewer and more (nine and ten were probably the most common answers). And they don't have to be symmetrical. So eight is apparently a standard number, but if your pet has a little more or less of them, then you should not worry - this is also the norm.

Okay, so the average cat has eight nipples, but what about cats? Do they need to be fed? Surprisingly, male cats have plus or minus the same number of nipples. After all, if we talk about the nature of this physiological process, it is worth focusing on the fact that the cat's body develops according to the principle of the human one, although it has its own radical differences. From this side, the presence of nipples in male cats can be explained. So: in childhood, the female X chromosome dominates in the animal body, so nipples are formed in kittens of any sex. When the Y chromosome shows increased activity, the mammary glands in boys stop developing. This just explains the phenomenon that cats have nipples, and in the same quantity as in the body of a cat.

While I was studying the forums, I found an interesting fact - many cats sometimes make alternating movements with their paws and purr at the same time. It turns out this behavior is called " milk step »

When the caressed cat is satisfied, it can alternate between translational movements front paws, releasing and retracting claws. This movement is called the "milk step" - with this movement, the kittens stimulate the release of milk from the mother's nipples during feeding. Sometimes the “milk step” is accompanied by a distinct smacking of the cat. Some cats do the "milk step" when they are caressed, others may do it on their own, burying their muzzle in some fluffy thing, but in any case, it means that the cat is very pleased. In some cats, you can provoke a "milk step" by imitation with your own fingers - if the cat is in a favorable mood, it can respond with a mutual movement. The "milk step" is usually accompanied by a purr. In addition, if a cat sleeps, stretched out and spread its paws, then when stroked, many cats tend to stretch even more, while releasing their claws and sometimes making sounds similar to purring.

And as a bonus - a little interesting facts about cats:

Cats, as a rule, “dig” with their right paw, and cats with their left.
A cat cannot climb a tree upside down because of the claws. In order to get down from the tree, she needs to retreat, walking backwards.
Cats make about 100 different sounds. Dogs are only 10.
The cat can move top speed about 50 km/h for short distances.
A cat can jump up to 5 times its own height.
Cats rub against people not only out of affection, but also in order to mark the territory with the smell of glands located around the muzzle. Also, the smell is emitted by areas near the cat's tail and paws.
There is a breed of cats that love to bathe. Wool Turkish Van, a breed bred in Central Asia, has a unique texture that makes it waterproof.
A cat's vision is both better and worse than a human's. Better - because cats see much better in the dark and have a wider angle peripheral vision. Worse, because they don't see colors the way humans do. For example, grass appears red to cats.
The ability of cats to find their way home is called psychic travel. According to experts, cats either determine their location by the corner sunlight or cats have magnetized cells in their brains that act like a compass.
Cats very rarely meow at other cats, usually only at people. The cat is more likely to snort, purr, or hiss at other cats.
The cat's jaws do not move from side to side, so the cat cannot chew large pieces of food.
Most cats were shorthaired until, about 100 years ago, experiments with breeding and crossing breeds came into fashion.
Cats have 32 muscles that control the outer ear (humans only have 6). Therefore, cats can turn their ears 180 degrees.
Cats don't sweat glands throughout the body, as in humans. They only sweat through their paws.
At adult cat 30 teeth. Kittens have 26 milk teeth, which fall out at the age of six months.

Sourced from www.kittyclysm.com

In fact, this is not the only, although the most popular, question about cat nipples. Let's try to answer at least some of the frequently asked questions on this topic.

Do cats have nipples?

Certainly, cats have nipples! Cats feed small kittens with breast milk, like other mammals. That's what nipples are for.

Interestingly, some species of mammals lack nipples. Mammals of the monotreme order, for example, the platypus and echidna, do not have nipples; milk is secreted through the pores of the skin in special areas (the so-called milk fields), from where the cubs lick them off. But there are few such species among mammals, and cats definitely do not belong to them. Cats, dogs, cows, pigs, monkeys, many other animals, and humans use their nipples to feed newborn babies with milk until they can eat solid food.

Do cats have nipples?

Necessarily! Do cats have nipples?, all cats have nipples, regardless of gender. Just like human men have nipples, although they do not breastfeed their children, cats also have nipples. In cats, nipples do not perform any useful features, but, nevertheless, there are - this is an integral part of their body.

Why do cats need nipples, because they are useless?

In the animal kingdom, if females have nipples, males tend to have nipples too, despite the fact that males don't use them at all. Very rarely there are species in which females have juices, but males do not - these are, for example, rats and horses.

This fact has a simple explanation. Males and females in the early stages embryonic development practically the same. As the male DNA kicks in, male hormones such as testosterone stop the development of some organs, such as the mammary glands, and stimulate the development of others, including the reproductive organs. Since males do not need mammary glands, most mammals do not develop them.

But nipples in male mammals, including cats and humans, do not stop developing. Why? Because their presence does not cause harmful effects. If cats had complete mammary glands that are never used, maintaining them would be a waste of resources (eg energy). These resources could no longer be used elsewhere in the body, such as muscles or the brain. But since nipples require very few resources to support, male DNA doesn't bother to block their development.

If nipples were resource-hungry organs, male DNA would most likely evolve to block their development, conserving the resources needed to develop other useful organs and abilities. Instead, the nipples in males remain, since their elimination requires an unjustified complication of the process of organism formation.

How many nipples do cats have?

Perhaps this is one of the most common questions about cat nipples asked on the net! This interest is probably due to the fact that their number different cats varies from 4 to 10 nipples, and sometimes even more! Moreover, it happens that a cat has an odd number of nipples.

The "standard" quantity is 8 nipples located in pairs - this happens most often. Somewhat less often, cats have 6 nipples, the remaining variants are much less numerous, but also not considered abnormal.

Where are the nipples of cats?

According to the location of the nipples are divided into chest, abdominal and inguinal. You can see them on both sides middle line running along the lower part of the body. Usually these are 4 or 3 pairs of nipples, in which the nipples are located symmetrically - one opposite the other. It happens, however, that there are more or less nipples, and some may not have a pair - this is not a sign of any disease.

What do cat nipples look like?

If your cat has sore nipples, you should contact your veterinarian.

Can you tell the gender of a kitten by the nipples?

It is forbidden! Since both cats and cats have nipples, and their number does not depend on gender, it will not work to determine the sex of a kitten by nipples.

The number of nipples may be of interest to the owners of the animal for several reasons: due to the pregnancy of the pet and the upcoming period of feeding offspring, during the culling of specimens with inappropriate data, when an asymmetric arrangement of these organs is detected, etc. Most often, specialists who have been breeding cats for a long time do not have such questions, but those who have not previously encountered anatomy reproductive organs cats, this point can be confusing.

In order to figure out how many nipples are the norm, which deviations do not affect the feeding function, and which should be a signal to contact veterinary clinic to consult a specialist, it is worth familiarizing yourself with the general moments of the anatomy of cats and cats in more detail.

In veterinary medicine, it is considered normal when a cat has 8 paired nipples on the lower body. They are placed in pairs:

1 pair per thoracic region(can be felt near the front paws);
2 pairs in the abdominal region (can be located at the same or uneven intervals);
1 pair in the inguinal region (located in the depressions near the hind limbs).

An interesting fact is that the innervation and nutrition in them is carried out not in pairs, but in vertical rows (on one side of the body, lymphatic drainage, blood vessels and nerves connect the right nipples in series, and on the other hand, the left nipples). That is why pathologies and dysfunctions most often spread on one side.

In breeds that have thick hair, nipples are difficult to find, but thinning is often observed around them. hairline which is not a pathology. During pregnancy and subsequent feeding, these structures swell and increase in size, sometimes 5-6 times. After the first feeding, they no longer return to their original size, but decrease slightly between pregnancies.

Norm Options

Do not panic if a cat manages to find more or not enough nipples: this does not mean at all that the animal is sick and needs help. In addition to changes in quantity, there may be such differences from the norm:

asymmetric arrangement in vertical rows or in pairs;
partial or complete absence certain couples;
placement along the midline of the abdomen;
different size of nipples in one cat;
different skin pigmentation on these organs.

All these factors are not related to the breed, the only difference is that in hairless breeds, the nipples are immediately visible due to the lack of hair. The difference in the number of nipples does not affect the level of exterior features and cannot serve as a sufficient basis for culling a kitten.

What affects the number of nipples

As a rule, it is not the number of nipples that is of decisive importance, but how many of them can perform their function during the feeding of offspring. There are cases when complete set milk is not supplied through any duct, so kittens need to be fed artificially. On the contrary, sometimes one pair is enough to fully feed the entire litter.

Until the moment when the offspring is born, it is impossible to determine how many of the existing nipples will fully be able to perform their function. Those that do not supply milk when sucking are most often underdeveloped at the time of embryonic development and they lack a duct from the gland to the surface of the skin.

With age, the number of nipples does not change: they cannot be added, but they cannot disappear over time.

cat's nipples

Some people are surprised by the fact that nipples can also be found in a cat, because he does not need to feed offspring. Inexperienced owners should be aware that attempts to determine the sex of a kitten on this basis will not be successful.

The presence of such structures in a cat is due to the fact that in the embryonic period their laying occurs at the same time in males and females, but they reach their final development under the action of sex hormones after the animal becomes pregnant. In females, such sex hormones begin to be produced after successful fertilization, and in cats, they can only be released as a result of an endocrine disease.