Cougar Mating - Spay or have endless heat cycles

Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1998 11:41:33 -0600 Subject: FEL-L: Cougar heat cycles

There's been several posts to the list lately about when female cougars reach sexual maturity, and how noisy they can be. I'd like to share some personal observations I have made and opinions I have formed over the past thirteen years living with cougars.

Our first pair of cougar, Mercury and Tara were 27 months and 20 months old respectively when they began to express their sexual interest in each other. Tara's first heat was in June and it lasted about ten days. Mercury was terribly love sick and romantic, and Tara was an extremely affectionate queen. She called out, but it was more of a loud, sultry meow, than the usual screaming we normally associate with cougars in heat. And Mercury's interest was that of a teenager gone wild. They would play what we nick-named the "invisible 6 inch string game" for hours at a time. And what that consisted of, was Tara slowly patrolling the 1/4 acre exercise yard and Mercury following right behind, his nose never more than six inches from the base of her tail. And then she would pause, and he would begin to passionately lick at her backside eventually settling in on her genitals. She would lower herself to the ground and arch her back into the air, hold her tail to the side and he would mount her in the most romantic way.

Tara's first heats were sporadic. Some were 10 days long and one month apart, some were 20 days long with only a 10 day break. It took nearly a year for her estrous cycles to settle into a regular pattern, and also for her to finally conceive her first litter.

And in July of the following year, Tara shared with me something I will never experience by myself. I have no human children of my own, but together, we gave birth to Cinnabar, Arjan and Sharu. I say together, because I was in her house with her throughout her labor, and in fact, she laid upon my stomach, our faces touching as her screamed out in the pain of labor. She licked my face and eyes, and purred and purred to me. Bart was beside us, and he captured those moments on film.

Tara was the model mother, she know exactly what to do with her kittens. And she willingly shared them with us for the first month of their lives. And then we removed them into our home to bottle raise them. A month later we returned them to Tara, and together we shared in the joy and wonder of raising those three miracles of birth. That was 1988, and it was the happiest year of my life. We used to walk Tara from her compound over to her son's cage and then release them into the adjoining fenced-in five acres to explore and play. Mercury would stay over in his kingdom and after a few hours he would begin to scream. To demand the return of his wife. and we would all obey. We'd leash her back up and walk her home to him.

Tara stayed out of heat for 8 months after giving birth. I have read that if the kittens stay with the mom for less than a month she will immediately return to heat, more than a month, and she won't. Maybe that's why. But I also know that by letting her raise them with us, her maternal hormones kept cycling and her resulting serenity and peacefulness and loving state was the most beautiful sight in the world.

But when the boys reached 8 months, she returned to estrus and abandoned them. From that point on, she has never wanted to be near them. And so, she and Mercury live on one side of our house and her sons share a compound and adjoining five acres on the other side of our house.

After that Tara cycled more regularly and it became a challenge to prevent another conception. We didn't want to breed cougars, so I found myself in the most unpleasant position of having to deny and happily married couple the joy of sexual expression. But Tara was determined and so, instead of constantly screaming and announcing her sexual state, she began to hide it from me. As if to say, "Come on Lynn, nothing's gonna happen. Trust me. Put me back with Mercury."

It got so the only way I could know her sexual state for sure, was to check her genitals. If she was in heat, she was wet. And if I wanted to make sure, I could always spank her on her bottom. And that would trigger the lordosis position and then I knew.

But the strange thing is that when you deny a cougar her sex, her cycles do go crazy. You just never know. In heat for weeks, out for days, in for days, out for a month. It's maddening.

And so we enrolled her in the hormone implant program and stopped her cycling for almost two years. But that has its risks and drawbacks and I would not do it again. Once is enough.

And so Tara has since had many litters of kittens. But today, she and Mercury are happily retired. They enjoy a full sex life and no risk of pregnancy. They have the best of both worlds.

Well, this is longer than I thought, so I guess I won't tell you about Sammy and his girls. Maybe another time. If anyone is interested. Lynn

Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1998 11:44:31 -0800 Subject: Re: FEL-L: South American Cougar

Our cougar was stuck for over 60 days in heat and did not come out of heat until she was artifically bred. She yowled so much that she was completely hoarse and had no sound to her voice at all. The Vets said that if they are not bred and they come and go into heat they will eventually get this way. When they are being bred yearly or even every other year you don't have the problem. Its only when you have a female and she never gets bred.

I felt very sorry for our cat and it was no picnic to get her out of heat but as soon as we did she went to the Vet. This is also why I encourage anybody who has a cougar to make up their minds whether they want to breed or not and if not get the cat spayed.

Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1998 01:46:03 -0600 Subject: Re: FEL-L: South American Cougar

This is amazing, but I can see it happening. We haven't bred our cougars for a while due to problems with water & possibly the formula. Will be fixing the water situation in a matter of days & am getting new formulas, thanks to info found on this list. We also haven't bred because of all the new laws regulating (read prohibiting) ownership. I have one person who has been waiting for almost a year. We also strongly recommend altering animals who are not going to be bred. Much better for all.

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 11:24:00 -0600 (CST) Subject: FEL-L: Cougar heat

Okay everyone this time ti's the Real McCoy. Sugar is definately in heat. My question is: She is screamng constantly when the guy is here building her facility. The rest of the time she is just fine thanks to feline rescue. Why is it just this particular guy that makes her crazy?

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 12:10:41 -0800 Subject: FEL-L: Cougar heat

No offense, but does he smell foul, bad B.O. or something like that. If it's hot where you are, maybe his sweat is getting her worked up.

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 15:01:07 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: FEL-L: Cougar heat

I'm sure the guy does smell, but I'm not going to get close enough to find out. Sugar just sits at the window and screams. I was wondering about the noise of the pwer tools.

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 22:36:09 -0800 Subject: FEL-L: spay!

Spay her! She'll live a longer, healthier life and you're neighbors will thank you. We are spaying a 7 year old tiger that is here this Saturday for this reason. BTW: Brian, what do you want from us while we have her down?

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 20:48:37 -0800 Subject: FEL-L: Re: felines-l-digest V2 #127

this should last about a week. When she's out of cycle (for about three weeks), have her fixed (now's the time to find a good vet to do it). Otherwise, build a cage, put her outside, and deal with your neighbors filing a nuisance suit. Sorry, there's no easy answer to this one.