When to neuter?

What is the recommended age to neuter a cat? My vet recommends 6 months. A rescue I'm looking at adopting another civie from says that 6 months is too late because a cat will start spraying :?: Current civie is 5 months and will be neutered next month. He has not sprayed or shown any other marking behavior.

 

A lot of shelters neuter when they are 2 1/2 lbs and any age.

 

I know that many places do pediatric neutering - when they hit 2 pounds. I'd rather wait for 6 months for my own cats, and I have never had a cat spray before that age. I just rather that there be some good growth in before we cut off their hormones. They should also be big enough that you can make sure the testes are fully descended and can be grabbed- so to speak. I fully support early spay/neutering in shelters, of course, because it makes sure they are done before they are adopted.

I know there are articles worrying about spaying kittens and puppies too soon because it affects bone growth, but I don't know if this applies to males as well. (But still, spay before the first heat to lower the risk of breast cancer!) However, a few long term studies seem to show no problems with early neutering : http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/spayneute ... euter.aspx

In other words ... as long as you neuter, it should be good. ;-)

 

Cleo was done really young with no obvious ill effects. Squeak was more like 6 mos.

 

I vaguely recall a college professor saying that a male cat who is neutered too early will most likely have a really tiny urethra which results in urinary problems due to stuck crystals and stuff. I think it's because the testosterone produced by the testes influence the growth of various body parts and organs and stuff. So it is best to neuter at 6 months when the body is at a good size.

I've neutered at 6 months before and never had any issue with spraying. I think the rescue just spays/neuters early.

 

We neuter between 3 1/2-6 months of age. We wait until the kitten has completed their vaccination series and is old and large enough for the rabies and to handle anesthesia better (hence why we wait until 3-4 months of age, depending on the kitten's weight, health and vaccines) but always prior to 6 months of age. They can go into heat and sexually mature at 6 months of age.

 

I waited until Gustav was over a year, but he never sprayed or anything. With Simba I had preferably also waited until he was over a year, but he sprayed once a few months before he turned 1, so I had to do it then.

 

Personally, I have no idea why vets say to wait 6 months. If it was a problem there would be lots of shelter adoptees having problems. We have spayed and neutered probably a million by now, and all at 2 months or 2 pounds for shelter cats. They bounce back so fast!

Even for public cats they do it at 4 months, not 6. They are big when they are 6 months old. Different cats mature at different rates. My brothers neighbors cat had kittens at 7 months.

Basically, you are playing russian roulette. Your cat may not spray, but another cat might. You also run the risk of hormones taking over and them fleeing out the door in search of a honey, making more babies.

There are too many babies being made.

 

My youngest civvie went into heat at 4 months (vet estimate of age). She was a stray being fed outside by one of my coworkers then. When my coworker saw the kitten was in heat and was being gotten at by all the toms in the neighborhood, she took the kitten in and got her spayed ASAP. The kitten *was* in heat but, miraculously, was not pregnant. I adopted her very shortly after that.

 

From what I have read and heard, spay/neuter in cats is very safe done early - "pediatric spay/neuter." This is done at 2.5 pounds and at least 2 months.

In dogs, it is better to wait until they are between 6 months and a year old.

Claudia

 

in regards to my treedwellers as they are the most recent i've had to deal with and probably the youngest in a long time, Em was about 13-14 weeks when he was neutered. Fuji obviously hasn't been neutered due to his heart and he is starting to go thru the motions of spraying (shimmying his tail when i walk into the room for instance and he's happy to see me) but so far nothing is coming out, thank goodness, and he'll be a year old towards the end of this month.

i've recently talked to both our regular vet and his cardiologist about this and it's just not worth trying to neuter him but neither think we have anything to worry about with actual spraying because there's no un-spayed females or un-neutered males around **anti-jinx**

 

Personally, I want them neutered by 4 months of age....but by 5 or 6 months at the latest. How is that for a fuzzy answer?

For adoption purposes, I neuter them when they are around 2 lbs...give or take. I have neutered plenty of kittens when they were only 1.75 lbs. They wake up fast and act like nothing happened.

Ok....well....me thinks that your vets are not terribly well-versed in basic animal (or human) behavior when making these statements. That is like saying a male prisoner in solitary confinement has no 'urges' because there are no unspayed women around. Ask them about their own 'desires' when no women are around.....

Also...how can anyone stand the smell of unaltered male cat urine? That is pretty darn foul stuff and the odor is pretty bad by the time they are ~3 years of age - give or take. This can also cause A LOT of angst in multiple cat households. Just my opinion but.....No way would I ever have an unaltered male in my house.

 

A good fuzzy answer :smile:

Civie's neuter is scheduled for Feb. 4, the earliest appointment available. He will have just turned 6 months then.

 

Ummm....make that "unaltered male CAT".

Cindy - please don't take my post as being harsh toward you. I understand dilemmas when it comes to anesthesia issues. As always, my comments are general ones.

 

OT i know so pardon me for a sec, squeem? just want to give dr. lisa some info

dr lisa, he was born with a bad heart. cardiologist said if he lived to be a year old she'd consider him a miracle. trying to think of the correct terminology but i can't and my notebook is at home so i might have a word or two here wrong but his mitral valve isn't working right so he's got an enlarged left side, double chambered right ventricle and a hole between the two sides that's allowing blood to go back and forth between the two without going to the lungs first and getting oxygenated properly. dr. ankone said she would do the procedure if dr. yuhas in lawndale, his cardio, thought it was ok but cardio says we have to weigh the risks vs benefits. maybe he'll live another 6 months as he is, maybe he won't, and she says there is a great risk of him dying on the table or going into heart failure possibly or coming out just fine, possibly resulting in much shorter life, etc......sooooo for now, as long as he doesn't start spraying or we don't have other problems, i don't think i want to risk it at this time.

surprisingly, we haven't noticed a difference in his urine odor (i clean 9 boxes morning and night), except for this past weekend. he wet himself in the carrier on the way back from lawndale and it wasss rather skunky smelling that's for sure. had to give him a bath when we got home and he got to wheezing, breathing rapidly, and making bad sounds during that so i didn't even get to blowdry him. just laid on the floor with him wrapped in a towel until his breathing slowed down, his nose lost some of it's purpleness and then his brother cuddled with him and helped him get dry.

eta: no problem dr. lisa. believe me, i fear him spraying like you wouldn't believe. he wouldn't be tossed out on the streets if he started it but some changes would have to be made.

 

The vet at my former clinic's rule was : 3 months or 3 lbs.

 

Crap...I just posted a long reply and since I must have posted it at the same time as the last poster it does not appear. Is the post lost if I did not save it to my drafts?

Honestly...if it really is lost then this is incredibly annoying....it is time-consuming enough as it is to type out posts and when they are lost.....GRRRRRRRRR

And no...I don't want to make it a habit of saving to my drafts....

And yes....I suppose that I need to make sure the darn thing was sent before closing out of the FDMB....

 

Dr. Lisa,

I finally figured this out, since it has happened to me, too. If someone else posts to the
thread while you are still composing your reply, when you 'submit' it, you will get a message
that someone else posted and do you still want to post your own message.

Then you have to go to the bottom of your post and hit 'submit' again.

When your message is actually accepted, you get a small message screen that says your
message was posted.

Yes, very annoying and unnecessary, I think.

But I have learned to read the messages carefully after I 'submit'.

Sometimes I just hit my browser 'back' key enough times to find my composed message
and submit it again. Watch for the acceptance message !

 

Yes...that is why I wrote:

"I suppose that I need to make sure the darn thing was sent before closing out of the FDMB."

But considering that I am always in a hurry...I am sure that this will happen to me again.

 

happened to me several times, especially when I was on my blackberry...finally figured it out lol!

 

One of my vets says the same thing ... i.e., basically wait until at least 6 months for a male to allow those parts to more fully develop and mature. I don't know whether there are studies confirming that recommendation but given the "poor plumbing" that we already know male cats have been blessed with, the logic has always made a certain degree of sense to me. I typically wait until 5-6 months to neuter my males just in case there's something to it (and have never had a problem with spraying). But any young rescues I'm putting up for adoption tend to get snipped earlier because I want it done before they leave (I've come to NOT trust people anymore, at least in that regard).

Of course waiting doesn't ensure that you'll avoid problems. TomTom is a stray I took in when he was about two years old -- I neutered him upon arrival and although he was older and "fully developed," he's already blocked 5 times. Oh well....

 

There aren't.

It has been 'studied' and, to date, nobody has seen any evidence to show that waiting until 6 months of age will result in a wider urethra.

Of course when anyone says anything about "studies" we all have to keep an open mind with respect to how the study was designed...ie...how robust the study was because some studies are not worth the paper their results are written on because they were poorly constructed.

I have not looked at any of the studies that have been done on this issue with respect to sample size...length of the study....how well it was controlled...etc....but I don't know that we see any more blocked cats now than before we started doing pediatric neutering....and as a rescuer, I strongly feel that it is, in general, very unethical to adopt out any UNaltered animal since the compliance rate of people following through with sterilization of both males and females post adoption is dismal. There are too many "oh...I was getting to that but got to busy and now...whoops!! Fluffy is now pregnant...or spraying..." Therefore, I make no exceptions. If they are out of my control - they are altered first.

 

I just wanted to add my own "waited too long" story.I took in a semi-feral female cat last year that had four kittens.I adopted one out at three months of age.I had momma cat spayed and decided to keep her.The three remaining kittens are now six months old. There are two males and a female.All three of the kittens have never been outside and there are no unaltered male cats in my household. You can probably guess what happened. The female kitten is about a month pregnant. The only logical conclusion is that one of her brothers is the culprit.Both male kittens are getting neutered this week and hopefully I can get them adopted out.

From experience I can advise to get a female kitten by four or five months.So due to my stupid procrastination I get to go thru the kitten thing again in a month or so.

If any of you live in Florida and want to adopt a kitten please let me know. I am now a big advocate for early spay and neuter!!!

 

Jan - this will not be a popular response but I would get your poor kitten spayed asap. There is no reasin to force her to have kittens at such a young age and there is no reason to allow more kittens to be born only to take up homes...IF you can even find *good* homes in this day and age....that would otherwise be available for kittens who are already born that would end up dying in our terribly overcrowded shelter environment.

I would spay her now. Personally, i think that it is unfair to allow a six month old kitten to give birth. Sorry for coming on so strong but this is a very hot button of mine. Do I like to abort kittens? Of course not....but the alternative is worse on so many levels, in my strong opinion.

 

I shared this story so others would not wait too long to spay or neuter.The point is if you wait until six months, then it may be too late at least for female cats.Male cats can also be mature enough at six months to be sexually active also. Abortion in animals or people is a moral and ethical issue that divides a lot of people. Some people might also argue that keeping an old diabetic cat alive robs another healthy cat of a potential home. Sorry but I respectfully disagree with you. It certainly wasn't planned for this to happen but this is my decision to make.

 

Absolutely agree and everyone has the right to express their opinion and respectfully disagree with one another.

I will always continue to speak out about this issue mainly because many people are not even aware that cats can be spayed when they are pregnant. I have run up against this issue (people not being aware of their viable *options*) so many times and have had countless people express a great deal of relief when they realize that they really do have options and can now make a more informed decision.

 

Yes I was aware that was an option.The kitten embryos are developed enough for the bone structures to show up on an X-ray.Fortunately there are only two.The kittens are probably thirty five days gestation.The teen mom cat just turned six months two days ago.if I do the math right that means she went into heat at a little less than five months old.So that means that cats can become sexually active (both male and female) at five months or earlier.