Really old cat!

Question
I wanted to know if 1) this is common and 2) if you have ever heard of this: My family and I adopted a stray cat when I was 4. Goldie had a litter of 5 kittens when I was 6, and that was her last litter. She was 100% out door cat, and lived until I was 18. At what age do cats stop having kittens? We have no idea how old she might have been, and I just always wanted to know.

Answer
Hi Deanna, thank you for the question. You didn't mention if she was spayed after having this one litter...?? IF, she was NOT spayed and she stopped having kittens it may have been because there was something wrong with her reproductive organs. If a cat was allowed to have a litter whenever they were in heat and they had kittens for as often and as long as they were able they would live to be about 10 yrs old. Any cat that has kittens every 3 months will eventually just be a bag of bones and be a candidate for any contagious disease going around. All of their stamina and nutrition would be going to the kittens and nothing is left for the mom. If a cat is spayed and has proper veterinary care and lives indoor safe from avoidable perils and nothing big goes wrong like cancer or kidney failure etc. the cat can live to be 22/23 yrs old. In the case of Goldie because you had her for 2 years before she had a litter of kittens I would assume there was something wrong in her uterus, perhaps fibroids?! A cat that lives outdoors for two years in peak reproductive condition would have had 6-8 litters in that time! So, since Goldie apparently had a difficult time conceiving is probably a blessing! If she only had one litter she has managed to live to be at least 14 yrs old by your calculation! I guess what I am trying to say in a round about way is that in this example it is difficult to say how old Goldie would have been because she was not reproducing like the average cat. You could almost tell her age better by other things. Did she grow much since you got her? Did she get a vet check up as vets can often estimate the age of a cat by its teeth. Most likely she was about a year when you got her as that is a common age for cats to go astray and be picked up by new owners. This would make her 15 when she died which is a nice old age for a cat that started out life as a stray ! You must have given her very good care!
Teresa