Could he have been "naturally" neutered?

Hi All!

Last time I was on I was complaining about two bottle babies who were being pains. They finally weaned, grew up into bigger pains , and were finally adopted!

However, about a month and half after I first got them, their brother showed up! He was a MESS!!!!! One eye hanging out, a pound of poo stuck to his bum with no skin left underneath, fleas, lice, worms, disfigured lower jaw, nothing but skin on bone. If it hadn't been a Sunday night where all the vets and shelters were closed I honestly would have had him put down immediately - I really thought he was too far gone. The best we could figure is that one of the feral females in the neighborhood got pregnant too young and didn't know what to do, so she tried to keep one kitten and abandoned the other two.

We got him cleaned up (since I wasn't going to leave him in that state overnight) gave him some food and figured we would just have him pts in the morning. The next morning he was climbing the bars of the cage and screaming for breakfast. So.... he stayed. We had his eye surgically removed two weeks later, and he's been a terror ever since.

The problem is he's now six months old and there's no sign of the family jewels. When we found him he was at least six weeks old. My vet wants to charge another $800 to do an exploratory because he thinks the kitten is a bilateral cryptorchid. (On top of the $900 we paid to remove the eye.) My hubby and I think that they rotted off along with the skin on his bum. When we found him there was no skin from the base of his tail to his stomach - you could actually see where the edges of the skin were and what was showing I guess was bare muscle? We just don't have that much cash for another surgery - we had just enough to cover a regular neuter, no more. The vet will not work with us on price.

Has anyone run into something like this before? The vet thinks there's no possible way they could have fallen off, but he only got to see him two weeks after we found him. By that point he had been completely cleaned up, was eating good food, was on strong antibiotics, and was almost completely healed. His brother was fully dropped by two weeks. If they were already down before he got skin rot, could they have gone with the rest of his skin?

Look up cyrptoid ...

Originally Posted by sharky

Look up cyrptoid ...

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The OP mentions that the vet said he could be cryptorchid

I happened to be on the phone with my vet when I read this and asked (she must think I am a real weirdo sometimes ) she said she has never heard of anything like them rotting off without the cat being so sick that it didn't live, or needing major surgery to basically turn the boy into a girl to allow them to pee

I suppose you could keep him completely isolated from fertile females and see if he ever starts spraying. That would also give you time to save up in case he does need the more expensive procedure.

He's the only cat in the house that isn't fixed. And we have a houseful! If it where just him or if we had smaller numbers I'd be perfectly comfortable waiting it out. I'm just worried what would happen if he hit puberty - I'm not sure how the other cats would react. Since they're all rescues, not all of them were fixed when babies. I'm still leaning toward that idea, but I am worried about it.

He really shouldn't have lived. Not to be graphic, but for the first week and a half he had no sphincter. It was just loose bare muscle and there was just a constant dribble of poo. I was having to bathe his bum with warm water every two hours to keep the wounds clean.

I got word from the local shelter that they could do the surgery for $50 during their normal spay/neuter days. My hubby thinks this is a great idea, but I'm not so sure it is. They have done bilateral cryptorchids before with success, but they're nothing more than a spay/neuter clinic. I don't know how the cats fared after they were sent home. I thought that the surgery is very difficult?

There is still a possibility that the testicles may still descend. Sometimes it takes longer than 6 months for them to come down. If they don't descend, there is a high probability he is sterile but he will still produce that delightful tom cat odour in his urine. At any rate. do make sure he is completely healed and healthy from all his other problems.

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Originally Posted by liddle_spiders

I got word from the local shelter that they could do the surgery for $50 during their normal spay/neuter days. My hubby thinks this is a great idea, but I'm not so sure it is. They have done bilateral cryptorchids before with success, but they're nothing more than a spay/neuter clinic. I don't know how the cats fared after they were sent home. I thought that the surgery is very difficult?

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I have to admit that I'm not familiar with the details of that procedure. However, as how it went for the cats afterward, why not ask them if they can put you in contact with some satisfied customers? They might or might not be able to do that, but if they can, it could put your mind at ease.

Originally Posted by ebrillblaiddes

I have to admit that I'm not familiar with the details of that procedure. However, as how it went for the cats afterward, why not ask them if they can put you in contact with some satisfied customers? They might or might not be able to do that, but if they can, it could put your mind at ease.

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They already told me they can't do that. It's a take-it or leave-it offer. They have no contact with people once they take a cat home.

My cousin's kitty was bilateral cryptorchid. The vet made us wait until he started showing tomcat behaviors before he went in ("just in case"), which he did when he was about 10 months old. He never sprayed but his urine (even in the litterbox) smelled so bad! But our vet only charged about $185 (double a normal neuter) for the surgery. $800 seems rather excessive.

My experience with low-cost programs is that the cats do just fine. Even if he does have some complications afterward, it would probably be cheaper to have your vet deal with it then rather than having him do the $800 surgery. A cryptorchid neuter is about the same as a spay, and most cats spayed at a low-cost clinic do fine.

If he had that much necrotic tissue it's possible they rotted off with the rest of it. I might be inclined to wait until he gets tomcat stinky before doing anything.

Its not that much different than a spay, as far as surgery goes, the shelter gets quite a few in per year so the vets should be well used to doing chrptorchids

One rescue I was volunteering for only one testicle hadn't descended so the kitten had to be snipped and "spayed." Ugh!

liddle spiders you are an AMAZING person to have taken in and saved that kitten.

This is a fascinating topic. Please do keep us updated on what happens.

Often, they can actually palpate the shy testicle out and do a normal neuter. We tried that with my one nutted cat Can I say that??) but there was nothing to be found and it is likely that the testicle as a recognisable thing never existed beyond a bit of testosterone producing tissue. His brother was perfectly normal, routine, nothing odd about him at all. The vet that did them was completely flabbergasted that there was nothing to be found on palpation - in his long practice he had only seen a small handful of crypt cats - it just doesn't happen very often, no where near as often as with dogs or other species.

I am gonna ask when the 'new' vet comes to do the horses to see what the procedure entails to find that errant bit of tissue. With any luck he can go in the easy way with a scope and see.