ready to "fix" brother & sister

Hi, I have two 18 week old kittens, brother & sister, and am ready to take them to be neutered/spayed. I have been reading quite a few of the posts about cats coming home with vet "smells" and not being accepted, even by their close siblings. Casanova and Zoie are so amazing together - I would hate to see them at odds. So I'm curious as to whether or not I should take them in at the same time. Has anyone done that? Does it help prevent conflict?

Another concern is my 14-year old cat. She is still not completely accepting of these guys as it is. I thought it might be easier for her if we reintroduced the kittens at the same time rather than prolong her confusion.

Any thoughts?

I don't think it would be too big of a problem to get them fixed at the same time. But there will be a bit of an adjustment period. For the first few hours after you bring them home you should keep the brother & sister separated and from the other kitty too (just until they are feeling more like themselves again)

When I had my kitten spayed the older kitty was immediatley accepting of her but it is an individual thing. You should keep a very close eye on the interaction between them all for a while just to make sure that everyone gets along.

I don't know about the fixing part, but whenever we need to take Bijou or Mika to the vet for annual check-up or vaccinations, we take both of them even if only one of them is being seen by the doctor. Our vet allows us in with the kitties so it's one big happy family and they both smell the same when they get home.

We got our brother and sister kittens fixed at the same time (at about 5 months of age). Ross was back to normal after a day and wanted to play with Monica, she didn't want to play and eventually ended up hiding on him! Monica ended up having to wear a cone because her incision was infected. The cool thing was that whenever Monica had her cone on Ross would be very gentle with her, but whenever we would take it off to give her a break Ross would want to chase her! If I were you I would just keep an eye on the kittens since the males heal a lot quicker than the females.

Also, it's very possible your older cat will hiss at your kittens once they get back from the vet, especially if it doesn't like them to begin. In my experience, when a cat smells the "vet smell" on another cat it will usually hiss and then run and hide!!! Good luck.

I think its best they get done together and come home together. At least they would smell the same to each other. How long have you had them? Ling's 2 yrs old and it took her about 2 weeks (about as long as we've had Charlie) to accept him and play with him. She didn't even meet him face to face till the 4th day.

With your older cat being 14, she will take longer to accept the younger ones.