Avoiding post-fixing injuries...

my two kittens will be going to get fixed sometime in March i think. i'll probably have them both done on the same day if i can.
i have one male and one female, they are siblings and like to roughhouse a lot.
so i'm concerned about the stitches in my female kitten. her brother is the instigator as it is, and since he'll probably recover quicker then her just due to the nature of the surgeries i'm concerned that he may get rough with his sister and cause her to tear her stitches before she has had time to sufficiently heal. how long does it usually take to heal to the point where the risk of tearing the stitches goes away? will i need to keep them separated at night when i'm at work, or whenever else i can't supervise them? they don't really like being isolated, both from each other and from me.

also this is an odd question but, will the kittens be able to use the litterbox following the surgery or will they be in enough discomfort so that they will have problems with that?

Originally Posted by Kazanlak

my two kittens will be going to get fixed sometime in March i think. i'll probably have them both done on the same day if i can.
i have one male and one female, they are siblings and like to roughhouse a lot.
so i'm concerned about the stitches in my female kitten. her brother is the instigator as it is, and since he'll probably recover quicker then her just due to the nature of the surgeries i'm concerned that he may get rough with his sister and cause her to tear her stitches before she has had time to sufficiently heal. how long does it usually take to heal to the point where the risk of tearing the stitches goes away? will i need to keep them separated at night when i'm at work, or whenever else i can't supervise them? they don't really like being isolated, both from each other and from me.

also this is an odd question but, will the kittens be able to use the litterbox following the surgery or will they be in enough discomfort so that they will have problems with that?

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First....thank you for being responsible and planning to have the kittens fixed. I don't know how old they will be in March...but it is advisable to get kittens fixed around 4 months of age if possible (ask your vet when the earliest is that they will perform a spay/neuter). I had my boy fixed at 5 months of age and my girl fixed at 6 months of age but that was 8 years ago. The rescue that I volunteer with spays/neuters at 3 months of age.

The vets office usually will give you an after care list of things to keep an eye on...you may want to keep them seperate during the times that you are not home to decrease the chance of them tossling each other too much.

Katie

I understand your concerns, I was worried about that too. I had our mother cat and 4 of her kittens (2 male/2 female) spayed/neutered on the same day.

First, one thing I would suggest is that you keep both kittens in their carriers until the anesthesia wears off and they are stable walking around. I made the mistake of letting them out too soon and they were running into everything out of confusion....back in the carriers they went, LOL.

The incisions are extremely small (1 or 2 stitches) on the females, it almost looks like a new belly button. And to be honest, it is really unlikely the female is going to allow him to rough house with her when she isn't feeling up to it. And, he isn't likely to want to rough house too much when he has a sore area either.

In other words, definitely keep an eye on them but it's really unlikely either will cause the other a problem with the stitches. What is more likely to happen is they mess with their own stitches by grooming. And in that case, you can always put an Elizabethan collar on them to stop them from chewing at their stitches.

With 5 recovering cats, I had zero problems with recovery. The first day, they were sort of out of it. After that they were just less likely to rough house for a few days, when they felt better. And even then, they never caused any problems with each other, or their own stitches.

Good luck with it, and thank you for doing this for them.

I had two cats neutered last May and they were running around like nothing had happened by the time we picked them up from the vet at 5 in the afternoon (they'd been fixed in the morning).
That said, a spay is a little different. My vet recommended taking a tall athletic sock and cutting the top part off (the part around your ankle/calf). This make a tube that you can put around your cat's belly to cover the scar. This will keep it protected.

Thanks for the help. i've had cats spayed before but it was two sisters, we had them done together also, and so they healed at more or less the same rate so the risk of damage to the stitches was less. my kittens are around five months right now, my vet apparently likes to spay/neuter at around six months, because they are the ones that said that they would need to be fixed in March.
there isn't much risk the female is going to go into heat before then right?

The sock idea is interesting. I wonder if i could manage to get that on to Olga before before she tore my hand to shreds...

i'll probably try to time the surgeries to coincide with my days off so that i can keep a closer eye on them for the first couple days.