Cats mature gracefully. Even though it's easy to tell a kitten from an adult cat, it can be hard to tell how old a cat is once they hit the adult stage. For the most part, an adult cat looks very similar to a senior cat. Making determining their age even harder, most cats are adults around 9 to 12 months old. If you're wondering how to tell a cat's age, you should know these five surefire ways to pinpoint how old your cat is.
First, a Primer on Cat Ages
Before we dive into how to tell a cat's age, let's first review the cat age stages. Six stages comprise a cat's life. From 0-6 months, they are kittens. Kittens are small, adorable, and always exploring so that they can learn more about their environment. From 7-24 months, felines enter the junior stage. Juniors are becoming more independent and getting ready for the transition to being in their prime years.
After two years, a cat is in its prime. This time is when your cat will be the most alert and will have the most ability. They'll be in this phase until they hit the seven-year mark. At seven years, your cat will be mature. After ten years, they'll be senior. Finally, after fifteen years, they'll be geriatric.
So, when looking for how to tell a cat's age, really what you're trying to do is figure out in which of these age buckets they fall. It's tough to tell the difference between a seven-month-old cat and an eight-month-old cat, but, as we'll see, it's relatively easy to determine whether your cat is in its junior years or if it's of the senior cat age.
How to Tell a Cat's Age: Look at Their Teeth
Teeth are a fantastic indicator of a cat's age. First, all teeth don't come in for a cat until they hit approximately six months, so if you look inside of their mouth and have any teeth missing, you know you have a kitten. Second, if you have an adult cat with all their teeth, you can sometimes tell the feline's age by looking at the stains. As they eat more, their teeth become more stained. Therefore, if you see pearly whites, you have a younger cat. If you see older teeth, there's a chance that you're looking at a more elderly feline.
Of course, this method is a mere approximation, but it can at least help you get a hunch about how old the cat might be.
The Softness of Their Coat
A kitten's fur coat is soft, silky, and smooth. It's spotless and immaculate. However, as with human hair, as the cat ages, the fur coat becomes less soft. They may even develop patches of grey or white fur (just like humans do on their heads!).
Often a vet, who has seen thousands of cats and petted many coats of fur, can get a pretty good sense of how to tell a cat's age just by petting them!
Cloudy Eye Appearance or Discharge
Cats tend to have relatively bright, crisp eyes for most of their life. Only in the senior cat age (at ten years) will they begin to develop eye problems. Therefore, if your cat has cloudy eyes or has any eye discharge, that's a reliable indicator that you have a senior or geriatric cat.
Mobility and Activity Levels
Older cats love to sleep, while kittens love to play. While some older cats are spry and active, generally speaking, the more mature the cat is, the more sedentary it will be.
Senior cats and kittens need to sleep approximately the same amount of time each day - 20 hours. Adult cats, on the other hand, need to rest between 12-15 hours per day. Again, much of this is cat-dependent, but if you take a few days to time how much your cat is sleeping, you should get a rough idea of if they are an adult cat or a senior one.
Use a Cat Age Chart
There are many cat age charts online that provide photos of cats at each of these aging stages. If you find one, you can use it as a reference. Look at your cat and compare it to the ones you see. You might find that it looks like the junior cats, or you might find that it seems older like the senior ones.
Regardless of where your cat is, a cat age chart is one method for how to tell a cat's age!
How to Tell a Cat's Age: Possible, But Tricky
As we've seen, it's possible to get a ballpark estimate of how old your cat is by looking at a few features. If they have lots of energy, appear smaller, have soft fur, and don't have all their teeth, you're looking at a kitten. If they still have lots of energy, smooth hair, but have all their teeth, you're probably looking at a cat in its prime. Finally, if you're looking at a cat that has eye discharge, has a duller coat, and has less energy, you probably have a senior cat.
When in doubt, ask a vet! Since they have seen so many cats before, they often have remarkably accurate guesses on how old these felines are.
How do cats age?
For the most part, cats get slower, have a less shiny coat, and sleep more. Conversely, younger cats are sprier, have a softer fur coat, and sleep fewer hours per day.
Do cats age like dogs?
For the most part, yes. Both dogs and cats share similar characteristics when it comes to aging.
How do you tell the age of a cat?
The best way to tell a cat's age is to observe its behavior. Older and very young cats need to sleep a lot more. Cats that are in their prime need the least amount of sleep. Young cats have loads of energy and love to play. Older cats might just head to their sleeping space. Observing activity alone will give you a pretty good sense as to what age the cat is.
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For their size, cats live quite a long time. Generally, an animal’s longevity is proportional to its size (with the exception of tortoises, man and a few other animals).
A tiny mouse has a short lifespan, a rabbit somewhat longer and a dog between 7 and 20 years depending on its breed or size, its activity, or both. Cats aren’t much bigger than rabbits, but whereas the rabbit may live about 8 years, a cat will live on average about 12–14 years, and it’s not unusual for cats to reach their late teens or even their early 20s.
There are 6 life stages for cats:
- Kitten – 0–6 months
a period when the young cat is growing rapidly and is usually not quite sexually mature
- Junior – 7 months–2 years
during this time the cat reaches full size and learns about life and how to survive it - Prime – 3–6 years
the cat is mature physically and behaviourally, and is still usually healthy and active, looking sleek and shiny and making the best of life - Mature – 7–10 years
the cat is what we call ‘Mature’, equivalent to humans in their mid-40s to mid-50s - Senior – 11–14 years
takes the cat up to the equivalent of about 70 human years - Super Senior – 15 years and over
many cats do reach this stage, some not showing any signs of being so senior in age
The table below shows all of the stages and also the equivalent human age. What these stages let us do is to appreciate how old the cat is inside, since, as has been pointed out, this is often not very obvious from the outside, as cats seldom go grey or show outward signs of pain or illnesses such as arthritis.
International Cat Care has set up a preventative healthcare initiative called Cat Care for Life. The programme looks at the health checks your cat should be having dependant on its age and what age-related changes you can expect to see in your cat.
For full details please visit the Cat Care for Life website.
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"Nice to know of another older cat. Our 23 year old male tuxedo just passed in Jan./2020. Only last fall 2019 he came up on the lawn with a mouse. A little while later he arrived with a vole. Was active until the very last but got progressively skinnier, finally dying naturally in our arms with a final mew. Thanks for the info."
"Our cat is 25 years old. He was just at the vet's, his lab work was better than mine. The vet was surprised at how well the test went. The vet also checked him out for age, and agreed that he was indeed at least 25. I just wanted to know what was looking at."
"I found the tip about her eyes the most helpful. The teeth and fur helped too. Her behavior didn't really match up with the other three, as she's the cuddliest, quietest cat I've ever met. But by the other tests she definitely comes out as a young cat."
"Heya! Using these methods I was easily able to determine the approximate age of a cat I rescued just the day before. She's around one year old, poor thing. But she is in good hands now. (: So thank you for this!"
"Very informative article on helping identify the approximate age of felines. Really helped me verify my original suspicions of my cat being an older cat without having any leftover doubts. "
"This helped me. A cat wandered into my garden looking very thin, but I nurtured her and she is now bouncy and healthy. Looking at all the signs, I soon realized that she was very young."
"A cat adopted me about 9 months ago. He is a little purr machine, but he has hardly any teeth. I am guessing that he is pretty old. I am glad he is a happy guy regardless."
"This helped me to guess that my cat is around ten years old by looking at his worn down and missing teeth. He has also lost his vision in his left eye. Thank you."
"It's helped me because I just rescued a cat out of a tree. I checked it's teeth and it was white and not a sign of yellow, so I determined it was a year old."
"This article offered practical methods to examine my cat's teeth to determine his age. We adopted him from a shelter, so we're not sure how old he is."
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"The most helpful is the teeth. But they all were great tips in helping me determine Kanji's age. I think he's around 4-6 months."
"The step about my cat's eyes was especially helpful, as was the fur portion. I'm most certain that I have a younger cat now."
"All of the different ways to check my cat's age were extremely helpful as we found her on our front porch many years back."
"The cat is very cute, but it's an adult, so you have to take care of it and brush its teeth."
"I'm going to keep track of my cat's sleep schedule each day, starting tomorrow."
"I was really confused at first and I needed so much help thanks."
"Easy to read, step by step, pictures, other peoples questions."
"Learned if the iris is thin or thick and eyes are cloudy."
"Based on the teeth, she is about two years of age."
"Looking at the fur and teeth helped me out a lot."
"This article was good. My cat is 3 years old."
"The yellowing of the teeth was most helpful."
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"How old and how long they will live."
"The fur tip helped me the most."
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