Female cats enjoy advantages over male cats, but some people may dislike them as well because of certain disadvantages. Understanding the pros and cons of the female cat can help you to decide if this is the right choice for you.
Advantage #1: Less Risk of Spraying
Having a male cat increases the risk that your cat would spray. While female cats spray in some cases also, the risk of it drops dramatically. The most common time where this happens is when a person has multiple cats in the home. The female cat may be at higher risk of spraying.
Cat Behavior 101: You can lower the risk of spraying by making your cat feel confidence. Most of the time, they spray when they feel unconfident in themselves. Add porous things around the home that hold their scent that they can claim without having to spray.
In some cases, your cat may mark her territory with feces. Again, this is less common than with male cats, but it can happen with an insecure female cat.
If you’re interested in learning about the disadvantages of having a cat in general, I wrote about the top five disadvantages here.
Advantage #2: Great for Busy People
Another one of the pros of having a female cat, it makes a great choice for busy people because females display greater independence than male cats. When they go into heat, they may become more clingy, but they usually show less clinginess than male cats.
This cat will act better when left home alone, and she won’t be as likely to meow as much as her male counterpart. At the same time, she often comes right to you when you arrive at home.
Advantage #3: Strong Maternal Instinct
In some ways, female cats may behave more aloofly than male cats, but in other ways, they display more maternal instincts. They may, for example, adopt orphaned kittens and nurse them.
You might allow this surrogate mother to nurse the kitten and give him the needed milk.
Interesting Female Cat Fact: The maternal instinct in a female cat is so strong that they have been known to adopt puppies, or in some cases, orphaned baby squirrels.
Check out the short video below of a female cat adopting baby squirrels:
This may happen because female cats in the wild may nest together and feed each others’ kittens as the other mother hunts. Some cat experts say that it happens because she misses a lost kitten, but the above explanation makes more sense.
With a male tomcat, you have to worry that the tom would kill the kittens. If you already have kittens in the home, this makes getting an adult male cat next to impossible.
Advantage #4: More Easygoing and Trainable
Some see the male cat species as the more playful and cuddly gender, but female cats usually have a more relaxed demeanor. Still, they tend to act with more aggression than male cats. Male cats usually want to be the center of your world, which—believe me from personal experience—can grow tiresome. Females, on the other hand, tend to be more relaxed.
When we say trainable, keep in mind, this is a cat. It will only be trainable up to an extent with either gender.
Advantage #5: Less Likely to Escape the Home
Understand how this depends on the female cat’s personality because my sister had a female cat known as the great escape artist. Generally speaking, female cats tend to be more comfortable as indoor cats, and they aren’t as likely to race for the door when you open it.
With a male cat, you’d have to neuter the cat, or it will try to escape for breeding purposes.
Advantage #6: Less Territorial
All cats will mark their territory through scent and other methods in one fashion or another, but male cats tend to be more aggressive about it. To give you a real example, my girlfriend’s mother walked into the wrong space on a path, and a male cat bit her because they were encroaching on the male cat’s territory.
Female cats can also be territorial, but they don’t act as aggressively when defending territory, making them less likely to attack.
Disadvantage #1: Cost of Spaying a Female Cat
Expect to pay $300 to $500 to spay each female cat in the home. It costs a fair amount to spay female cats in comparison to neutering a male cat, which costs $200 to $400.
Especially if you deal with undesirable behavior, having a female cat spayed can eliminate many of the problems. Just keep in mind before getting one that they cost more. You can find budget clinics for this, but it typically costs more than $100.
Disadvantage #2: Annoying When in Heat
Female cats in heat will drive you nuts. They constantly yowl for several days every time that they go into heat to call in the male cats. The female cat may look for love and attention to the point of being obnoxious.
Previously, we said that female cats express less affection than male cats. However, when female cats go into heat, they may constantly seek out your attention for validation. My sister would say that whenever her cat goes into heat, she’s usually extremely mischievous the day before.
Disadvantage #3: Less Affectionate?
How a cat behaves will depend on its personality, but speaking on the whole, female cats tend to be the more stereotypical cat. They don’t care as much what you do one way or the other. Because of their maternal instinct, they prefer other cats to humans. This means that they may not cuddle as much as a male tomcat.
Let’s say that you have a child. The ideal cat for a child is one that is playful and calm, which male cats tend to do better at this. If you’re interested in learning about the benefits of cats for kids, I wrote about that here.
Disadvantage #4: Risk of Pregnancy
Unspayed female cats pose a risk of pregnancy. If you let them outside, the risk increases dramatically as the tomcats come sniffing around. A female cat’s gestation period is two months, which means that they can produce roughly five litters in a year.
Seeing as how kitten litters can range from four to 12 kittens, you can quickly find yourself overwhelmed if you don’t spay your female cat. 12 multiplied by five equals 60 new cats in a year. You can quickly find yourself overwhelmed with cats.
| Male Cats | Female Cats |
| More affectionate | Less likely to mark territory |
| More playful | Stays closer to home |
| Costs less to neuter | Great choice for busy |
| No risk of pregnancy | More easygoing |
| More social | Less territorial |
That looks at the pros of each, but what about the disadvantages of each one? We posted that below:
| Male Cats | Female Cats |
| Prone to urination territory marking | Less affectionate than male cats |
| Tries to escape for mating | Costly to spay female cat |
| Kills kittens | Risk of unwanted pregnancy |
| More aggressive | Raging hormones |
Conclusion
Hopefully, this article has shown you the pros and cons of getting a female cat. A female cat is usually a better choice if you live alone. I wrote about that in my article, “Should I Get a Cat if I Live Alone?”
Female cats have their advantages, but they can also be very annoying when they go into heat, and they cost more to spay.
