Reading some of the recent posts regarding neutering and spaying, I am surprised at how young the kittens appear to be when this is carried out in the USA, compared with the practice over here in the UK, where is isn't done untill kittens are around 5/6 months old. I believe this is the practice in Australia also.With males, they won't do it until the testies have 'dropped'.
I am in the USA and my vet will not do it til at least 4 months old. Ours did not come done due to the breeder does not like the early ones either. So I guess it depends on the breeder and the vet. We actually have our Mykah going in next Tues..My my where does time go.
Around here all the breeders have it done. Most vets do it but the requirement is that the males are min of 2 lbs and females 2.5 lbs. This is usually around week 11 of age. The kittens recoup the same day and no adverse affects. Clients like it as it saves them time, money, and stress.
Here is a article from CFA (Cat Fanciers Assoc.) regarding the issue:
http://www.cfa.org/articles/health/early-neuter.html
There has been an education gap in the US as well. However, as vets start to understand the safety of the procedure, it can be adopted elsewhere as well. It is a wonderful way for we breeders to make sure our kittens are not diverted into kitten mills and having a miserable life.
(If the UK vets will do castrations when the testicles drop, then they will do almost all males upon birth. ; ) Cats, unlike dogs, are born with descended testicles except in rare cases. Early speuter of males in the US is rarely if ever done on males who have undescended testicles because it converts the easy castration to a more difficult and dangerous - and expensive - abdominal surgery. We have never had a male with an undescended testicle when speuter time arrived.)
In Canada, some vets do it, some dont.
The ones around here charge a good $200.00each PLUS $500 non-refundable deposit or so to do an early neuter, and because I work a minimum-wage job, I cannot afford to do that AND keep my house, so I have my kittens on a speuter contract and will pay for them to bring the kitten back to our city to speuter them at the spay/neuter clinic (much cheaper to get it done there than anywhere else at $80/female and $55/male)
There is no need for you to pay for it. Obviously, the pet buyers from you pay for it now. Just have them pay for it when YOU take the kittens in to have it done before they go home. With such inexpensive surgeries, you can even use a deposit for the kitten so that you do not even have to advance the expense for a week or so.
I dont mind, it guarantees me that my kittens are speutered. Since I've only really had males, I REALLY dont mind lol. I usually get a voucher from the clinic that goes home with the kittens. The thing is tho, the clinic wont do it until they're a minimum of 6 months old and kitten buyers dont want to wait that long to pick up their new family members, and on top of that, Having potentially five, 6 month old kittens in the house sounds like pure chaos lol.
You are right that families do not want to wait another two months, but that should also mean they are willing to pay for a more expensive speuter elsewhere for a younger kitten.
Around here (SW Ontario), you wont really find any registered ragdolls selling for much more than $500-600 or so, and the ones that do are usually on speuter contracts as well, and not altered before they leave. The ones that ARE altered, are usually around the $800+ mark and are from larger catteries with about 10 or so adults.. and these catteries are run by people who work in a vet clinic.
Admittedly, the voucher thing was not my idea. I got the idea from the rescue I used to work with. They would adopt puppies and kittens out at 9-12 weeks who werent altered, but would go home with a pre-paid speuter voucher for the spay/neuter clinic. I think its a great idea if you cant find a vet who will do the surgery for a more reasonable cost than $700.00 for a single cat.
I found a low-cost spay/neuter clinic in Toronto too for the people from that city so that they dont have to make a day-trip and come back to London
I think its a nice alternative to early spay and neuter.
When I finish my course, I'll be working in a vet clinic (hopefully the only one I could find that will do the early altering), and will hopefully be able to assist in the speutering of my kittens before they leave at a better cost than what the clinic originally quoted me at.
JanH Wrote:There has been an education gap in the US as well. However, as vets start to understand the safety of the procedure, it can be adopted elsewhere as well. It is a wonderful way for we breeders to make sure our kittens are not diverted into kitten mills and having a miserable life.
(If the UK vets will do castrations when the testicles drop, then they will do almost all males upon birth. ; ) Cats, unlike dogs, are born with descended testicles except in rare cases. Early speuter of males in the US is rarely if ever done on males who have undescended testicles because it converts the easy castration to a more difficult and dangerous - and expensive - abdominal surgery. We have never had a male with an undescended testicle when speuter time arrived.)
That's really interesting, maybe it's that they are not considered big enough(the testies) untill the kitten is older. I believe they use Laser to do it. Frankie went in at 9am and I collected him at 3pm and he was none the worse for wear and tucked into his dinner immediately we got home!
On the question of cost, I paid £55 (about US$100) which I though was reasonable.