Tag: Entire

In animal fancy and animal husbandry, entire (or intact) indicates an animal has not been desexed, i.e., spayed (female) or neutered (male).
Animals are desexed for selective breeding purposes. Males may also be neutered in order to make them more tractable or meatier. A specialized vocabulary has arisen for neutered animals of given species.
Except where a desexed pet is desirable, entire animals usually fetch much higher prices than castrated ones, mostly because they retain the ability to breed. There are various health effects of the decision to leave an animal intact, or to castrate it. Leaving a female animal intact may lead to such complications as ovarian cysts, uterine infections such as pyometra, and cancer of the reproductive tract. In small animals such as dogs and cats, the ovaries and uterus are removed eliminating the possibility of disease in these organs. By de-sexing or spaying the female, the animal is surgically sterilized and cannot get pregnant; this however, may…