What age to spay cat?

As some of you know from my food thread, my boyfriend and I found a kitten on the side of the road about a month ago and decided to keep her. Arya is now about four months old, and we're wondering when would be the best time to spay her. I know queens in heat are a pain to deal with, but we don't want to spay her too early. From what I can tell, there isn't nearly as much research about the cons of altering early like there is in dogs, but I am sure there are some. Would doing it before or after her first heat be better? We were thinking a year, but that was literally just us picking something out of the air. With female dogs I would wait until three or four years, but queens in heat seem much more difficult to live with than bitches in heat.

Looking forward to the replies!

Cats don't go into heat like dogs do. Cats are induced ovulations, meaning that they do not actually ovulate until they are bred (or are artificially manually stimulated). So once they go into heat for the season they keep going in and out of heat until they are bred. Often every week or two.

So the point is, it's harder to really wait until "after one heat," although it is much safer to spay in heat as opposed to dogs. And nobody seems to really care about this issue in cats, so the answer to your question is that nobody knows. There isn't any evidence that I'm aware of either way.

I'm planning to have Histamine done around 6-8 months, I think. I do know that I don't want to deal with her being in heat. She's also currently 4 months old.

Mom has outdoor cats, three of which are female. One was spayed around 6 years of age, one was spayed around 1.5 years of age, and the youngest was done around 6 months. As far as I'm aware, they have no developmental differences. (They are all related, with the oldest being the mother and the other two being half sisters.)

I was always told around 7 months.