Malcolm Riordan, DVM, has been the veterinarian at Woods Humane
Society since 2005. Malcolm resides
in Morro Bay where he has found geographic fulfillment.
Contact Dr. Riordan
1001 Front Street, Morro Bay
Proceeds for book sales fund scholarships.
Opie
Spencer
Alister
Quapaw
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Kitten Tsunami Alert!
by Malcolm Riordan
Well here they come. Waves of kittens are headed our way.
Henry
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In the world of humane societies, city and county animal shelters, and the lives of people who foster feline litters, we'll just say "its kitten season." And what a scene it is. It is well known that our felis domesticus is an incredibly gifted top predator. But equally so, cats are also equipped as extreme breeders. If that is only an abstract concept to you, come see the proof:
Litter after litter of angelic sleeping kittens, at any moment changing into mini-demon feline popcorn. Littermates are kept together, so any cage or room can be the scene of climbing, horizontal levitations, fissile vertical accelerations, diagonal displacements, an electron jungle.
Blissful slumbers or popcorn popping, what a treat to gaze in on this yearly feline spectacle. Flight-school, judo, dance, and theatre. It seems every day they gain new moves and new agilities, advancing aerobatics.
Their kitten games show them honing assassin more than hunter skills—skills that will soon enough seem overmatched to their prey. Even before adulthood they will dispatch their rodent and avian victims in a moment. Unless, of course, they feel playful. Many will graduate from avian and rodent control to owner control. But not yet.
Lili
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The seasonal tsunami of kittens is a demonstration of prolific breeding capabilities.
These waves of juvenile felinity originate with the fact that female cats come into heat when the days begin to rapidly get longer—longer light periods induce heat cycles in the cat. The heat cycles then continue to relentlessly occur over and over again at 4 to 30 day intervals until they are bred, until the fall when the days start to turn rapidly shorter—or, ahem, until last ditch spaying.
Billi
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 Maisey
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Interestingly—and highly efficiently—female cats do not ovulate until the stimulation of mating occurs. One less thing left to chance there, you see. And sorry, but feline speed-breeding bypasses courtship. No adorable pair bonding to see here. Cats are labeled seasonal polyestrous induced ovulators. Other species with mating induced ovulation are rabbits and ferrets.
At an average of four kittens per nine week pregnancy, the ability to have two litters in one season, and that this years kitten is easily next years fertile feline, this system works. And hence the tsunami effect in USA latitudes where waves of kittens are born in kitten season, with definite peaking of births in May/June/early July, with another peaking in October.
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 Polly
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Confront a child, a puppy, and a kitten with sudden danger; the child will turn instinctively for assistance, the puppy will grovel in abject submission, the kitten will brace its tiny body for a frantic resistance. – Saki |
 
Come out to Woods Humane Society or click on the logo and take a look through some of the 100+ adoptable dogs and cats waiting for you to 'graduate' them into a new life.
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Woods Rafter Cat image on banner by Malcolm Riordan.
All pet pictures are owner submitted photos from the HSUS Spay Day 2011 Photo Contest |
