Average Cat Lifespan: Your Guide to the Critical Factors That Affect It

Lifespan of cats depends on factors such as diet, health, living environment, and many more. Moreover, other types of factors such as cat breed, gender, and domestication also affect how long they live. 

Today, we will explain how these factors come into play in determining the lifespan of cats, and what you can do to increase your cat’s lifespan.

The first thing you should know is that an indoor cat is completely different from an outdoor one. Let us explain by sharing the life expectancy of both indoor and outdoor cats.


Lifespan of Indoor Cats
Indoor cats outlive outdoor cats by thrice as much time.

They live much longer due to many reasons such as better food, water, and living conditions along with less risk, danger, and stress.

Let’s talk about these reasons in more detail, shall we?

First of all, indoor cats are vaccinated and sterilized, both of which contribute to better overall health. Secondly, they’re removed from the stresses and dangers of the outside world. 

Moreover, indoor cats have access to healthier food, clean and fresh water, comfortable beds, and they live in moderate temperatures. 

All of these factors contribute to indoor cats living a long and healthy life. The average lifespan of indoor cats depends on the breed, but is typically between 13-17 years.


Lifespan of Outdoor Cats
Outdoor cats don’t survive long because of many factors that negatively impact their physical and mental health.

There are way too many factors to list here, so let’s talk about the most important ones.

The first factor to come to mind is that outdoor cats include the ones living in jungles. They roam around in the wild where they might get hunted or worse eaten alive.

If an outdoor cat is not living in the jungle, then it’s living in urban, suburban, rural or remote areas where risk and danger might be equally high.

Moreover, outdoor cats eat unhealthy and unclean food, drink dirty water and live in regions with extreme weather leading to more illnesses.

All of these factors contribute to a short lifespan of somewhere between 3-10 years.


How Long Can a Cat Live?
As we mentioned earlier, the lifespan of a cat depends upon many factors. So, there’s no accurate estimate of the number of years a cat can live.

Cats with caring and responsible owners can live a very long time. If you take care of your cat and don’t let it go outside alone, you can expect it to easily live over a decade. 

Fun Fact: The longest living cat Creme Puff lived for 38 years.


What You Can Do to Keep Your Cat Healthy
Here’s a list of things that increase the chances of your cat living a long and healthy life:

• A healthy diet
  
• A sleeping regime
  
• A stress-free environment
  
• Regular exercise
  
• Regular playtime
  
• Monthly veterinary check-ups
  

If you take good care of your cat, then two things are for certain:

1. Your cat will have a longer than average life
   
2. Your cat will live a healthier and happier life