Incision from spaying

I got my stray I found (now named Zoe) spayed. Anyway her incision is only about a half inch long..is that normal? When I got my last cat spayed (which was probably 5 years ago) the incision was several inches long. But that was an adult cat, this stray is still pretty small. Anyway is this normal?

Spay and neuter techniques have gone through a series of transitions in recent years. The procedures now recommended are far less traumatic to the animal and the exterior incision site in a cat is rarely longer than a cm or two. It is also now quite common to use surgical glue rather than stitches on the exterior so there are no stitches to be removed.

Ah well yes they used surgical glue instead of staples in her case. Thanks for the information!

I googled laparoscopic spay, and it seems that this is common surgery now rather than using an open surgery.

Incisions in laparoscopic surgery are much smaller than otherwise, as there just has to be slots for narrow tools and a bigger one to get the organ itself out. For example, an old gallbladder removal for a person required about a five-inch or so incision, and now they get away with a couple of half-inch ones and a couple of one-inch ones. At least that's what I had. I bet a cat's uterus is smaller than a gall bladder, as long as it has no kittens inside.

Actually, it's probably way smaller. I watched a laparoscopic gall bladder removal on youtube before, and now I have just watched a spay of a pomeranian, and comparing the organ to finger size, the uterus is much smaller, so would require a very small incision to get out if done laparoscopically.

My vet did Daphne the old way Glad your little one had the smaller one

I don't know, because Butzie was already spayed when we got her at the shelter. We took our RIP Brownie to the vet to get neutered but all I remember is that when he came home, I put him on our bed, he rolled his head, said (in a drugged way) "meow," and conked out.

At our clinics the vets and veterinary students go in with a small belly incision--we can usually tell in recovery whether the spay was done by a vet or a student by its size. Surgical glue is used on the males after neutering, but generally we use dissolvable sutures for the females. Often those sutures don't quite dissolve as they should; I've had to take two kittens this year to have those sutures removed.

I've an older cat I've had since 1996; she was spayed right before I adopted her. I don't recall the scar, but she has had noticeable loose abdominal skin that made her look fatter than she is since the surgery--I've not seen that on any cat since....