About two months ago, a very small male kitten came to us . He was skinny, shaggy, and very hungry. Since he obviously wanted to stay with us, I made an appointment with the vet for an initial examination and vaccinations. The vet came this morning and determined that our cat is a hermaphrodite. His testicles are tiny, so he might not be able to father kittens, but he/she also appears to have female reproductive organs. It’s not clear whether the animal should be neutered or spayed, or both. There are many cat lovers and cat owners on the Dope. Has anyone ever been in this situation? If so, how did it turn out?
Congratulations! Hermaphroditic cats are extremely rare. So rare that nobody knows what percent of the population they represent. I wouldn’t expect your cat to behave any differently from any other cat its age, but someone else may have experience with one. If someone else on this board has or had one, you should start a club.
Never encountered one. We have had polydactyl cats in the past, but that’s a fairly well known and benign condition.
Let us know how things progress… good luck!
I I think you may have just done something even rarer than a hermaphroditic cat: asked a question that nobody on the Dope even thinks we know something about.
Other than ‘ pat and feed that kitten.’ Which I’m sure you’re doing anyway.
As rare as a male calico?
I believe it’s rarer. A male calico occurs approximately once every 3,000 births due to a genetic anomaly resulting in an XXY karyotype. That’s very different than being born with both male and female reproductive organs.
The looming question, and the possible reason to spay and/or neuter the cat, ist this: are mammalian hermaphrodites able to reproduce? In one or in two ways? I really don’t know. We have many experts in a lot of fields here, but I don’t remember if we have a vet.
It’s not really, “Can it still reproduce?” that’s the issue so much as, “Will it still go into heat?”
{ ahem} I believe pictures need to be posted?
From the top side…
Ok, that’s another important issue, but if the cat will be an outdoor cat (I know, a controversial issue), preventing reproduction also becomes important, to reduce the number of strays.
We had a foster kitten who we thought was male, and sent to get neutered. He came back with a note that he was female, and would need to be spayed. So we sent him to get spayed, but by then, his balls had descended and he was neutered.
I joked that he was a hermaphroditic cat, but really, i think the vet just made a mistake.
(We adopted him, and he’s a very sweet pet, who likes to curl up on my shoulder, wrapping himself around the back of my neck. It feels like a hug.)
Thank you all for your kind responses. Apparently, our kitty is a rare specimen.
We have agreed with the veterinarian to wait a few more weeks. The animal was probably abandoned, which means we don’t know exactly when it was born, but we suspect it was in May of this year. It is still too early for surgery. If the animal has female reproductive organs, we will have to consider spaying the cat, because if she does become pregnant, it is unclear whether the kittens will be able to suckle or whether they will die miserably if the cat has no milk or no teats.
Well, we’ll just have to wait and see how our kitty develops. By the way, she behaves like any other cat, she cuddles and purrs and is adorably cute.
She looks like Ruth Bader Ginsburg with her white collar. So adorable.
I had one twenty years ago. A ginger kitty.
We thought for sure it was a male and when we took it to the vet to be neutered, he told us it wasn’t quite so, and we ended up having to get it spayed in some way. I don’t remember much, it was so long ago, I only remember it wasn’t a case of mistaken identity.
My own partner at the time was intersex (and had been victim of various medical abuse in childhood) so it was very troubling for him to have this experience of having the cat operated on.
Not a cat, but I have been involved for years at a zoo where a few mammals were found to have both male and female reproductive organs (30+ years of having dozens of mammals of various species, you’re going to get some rare occurrences)- in every instance that showed up there, both sets of organs were partially developed and none of them were fertile. All were either in breeding schemes or of species where neutering is not recommended due to the animal social group structure.
The only time it caused an issue for the animal was a meerkat. She appeared female, acted female, was accepted as a female by the rest of the family group, but when the dominant male died, the new male added to the group drove her out, as would be expected for a male (the young males were rehomed before the new one was introduced to the mother and sisters).
None had notably poor heath; apart from the meerkat, who had the partially developed testicles detected on a vet visit after being attacked, for the others, it was only picked up at a post-mortem exam and the infertility was the only thing noted before then. There’s probably a lot of different possibilities for how things can develop though.
Oops, intersex, not hermaphrodite. I still think it was just an error, though.
Oh, what a cutie 
! It looks exactly like Julchen, our family cat when I was a child.
Apologies in advance if this is inappropriate, but you’ve piqued my curiosity. Would you be willing (and would your partner be willing for you) to share further details in a separate thread?
I’d expect teats to be present in any case, as both males and females have them as is general in mammals; but I don’t know whether the hormone production can be wrong for milk but still support pregnancy.
Kittens can be bottle fed, but it’s an awful lot of work.
As the only reason to allow pregnancy would seem to be curiosity about whether it’s possible, seems that spaying would be a good idea. And I don’t know whether pregnancy, if possible, would pose a greater risk than usual for the cat.
Pretty cat. I want to pat.