Vulvar Discharge in Cats: Colour and 24-Hour Plan

Discharge from the vulva is never normal in a spayed cat, and in an entire queen it is normal only during the 4 to 7 days of standing heat, when it is clear, watery and small in volume. Cream, yellow, green, bloody or smelly means an infected uterus, an inflamed vagina, or urine arriving where it should not.

Pyometra is why this symptom gets taken seriously. It appears 1 to 8 weeks after a heat cycle, and a closed cervix produces no discharge at all, only a sick cat.

What the discharge looks like, and what it means

Colour and volume carry most of the information before any test.

What you see	Volume, mL a day	Duration	Most likely
Clear, watery	1 to 3	2 to 5 days	Heat, in an entire queen only
Cream or white	Under 1	24 to 48 hours	Mild vaginitis, or a normal smear in a young queen
Yellow-green, thick	2 to 10	1 to 3 days	Pyometra with an open cervix until proven otherwise
Blood-tinged brown	1 to 2	7 to 21 days	Cystic endometrial hyperplasia, or a fetal loss
Urine-coloured, dribbling	5 to 20	Over 24 hours	Incontinence or a urethral problem

Group one: the reproductive tract

Pyometra is a bacterial infection of the uterus lining and is a surgical disease in most cases. Open cervix: discharge you can see, a cat that may still eat. Closed cervix: no discharge, a distended abdomen, fever of 39.4 to 40.5 C, vomiting, and collapse within 24 to 48 hours untreated. The open form is not safer, only more visible.

In a spayed cat the equivalent is stump pyometra, which needs an ovarian remnant: a few millimetres of tissue left at surgery keeps producing progesterone. Vaginitis is the benign end: a little cream discharge, no other sign, clearing in 5 to 10 days. Three or more recurrences a year points to a stricture or a retained urinary papilla.

Group two: urine in the wrong place

The urethra opens a few millimetres from the vulva, so a bladder infection looks like vaginal discharge from outside. The tell is the smell: ammonia rather than the sweet-sour smell of pus. Spayed females also carry a 5 to 20 percent risk of sphincter incompetence, which shows as leakage when the cat sleeps.

Group three: everything else

A grass awn, trauma, a vaginal or vulvar tumour in an older queen, and moist dermatitis of the vulvar folds in an obese cat all produce discharge or something that looks like it. A cat too heavy to reach and groom, with brown staining at the tail base, has a skin problem.

Two checks that decide the case

Check one is ultrasound of the uterus and ovarian pedicles. A fluid-filled uterus with a wall over 2 mm or a diameter over 1 cm supports pyometra; an 8 to 10 mm stump with fluid in a spayed cat supports stump pyometra.

Check two is a sample: cytology of the discharge, plus urinalysis from a cystocentesis sample with culture. More than 80 percent neutrophils with bacteria means infection rather than heat, and a urine culture over 100,000 colonies per mL changes the diagnosis entirely.

Bloodwork supports both: a white count above 25,000 with a left shift and a creatinine rising from dehydration argue for same-day surgery rather than tablets.

The first 24 hours, hour by hour

Hour 0 to 1: look under the tail with a torch, photograph it, take a rectal temperature. A reading of 39.4 C or above with no discharge is the dangerous combination. Hour 1 to 3: hold a clean white pad against the vulva for 10 minutes and keep it, because the volume on the pad is the number the vet asks for. Hour 3 to 6: note eating, drinking, vomiting, and whether the abdomen is tense. Hour 6 to 12: recheck the temperature, which can climb from 39.5 to 40.5 C in that window. Hour 12 to 24: any red flag means the clinic, not a watch list.

Do not wait for the discharge to stop. A closed pyometra stops discharging because the cervix shut, which is the worst version of the disease.

Hour-level triage

Sign	Number	Clinic within
No discharge, fever, tense abdomen	Temperature 39.4 C or above	2 hours
Discharge plus vomiting	2 or more vomits in 6 hours	4 hours
Soaking a pad	1 pad in under 60 minutes	2 hours
Pale gums, collapse	Refill over 2 seconds	0 to 1 hour
Cream discharge, cat well	Under 1 mL a day for 48 hours	72 hours
Spotting after heat	1 to 3 weeks post-estrus	24 to 48 hours

What to record at home

Four lines a day: pads used and how wet, temperature at the same hour, whether food was finished, and a daylight photo of the pad. Bring the pad in a sealed bag if the visit is within 24 hours, since cytology on fresh material beats a description. A 300 g drop in 48 hours is a surgical case, not an observation.

Do not breed her on the next heat: pyometra recurs in a third to a half of queens treated medically.

What not to do

No douching, no human vaginal creams, no leftover antibiotics, and no waiting for the next season. Antibiotics without drainage can rupture a closed pyometra, and one wrong dose makes the culture useless. Do not read discharge in a spayed cat as heat, because there is no heat to have. If she licked something unusual, check the toxicity list before settling on a reproductive cause; if the fluid is coming from a mammary gland, read nipple discharge.

A wet chin and a runny nose are a different picture, covered in sneezing without nasal discharge.

Five steps today

1. Take a temperature and look under the tail with a torch, then photograph it.
2. Put a clean pad on and time, in minutes, how long it takes to soak.
3. Call the clinic and say closed pyometra risk if there is fever with no discharge.
4. Withhold food from midnight if surgery is possible, but not water.
5. Bring the pad, the temperature log, and the date of the last heat.

Terms mentioned in this article

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Frequently asked

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