Cat Not Eating After Spay?

Sally is 12-13 weeks old and got spayed on Friday.....And I'm seriously regretting it. My husband and I were both "off" about having her done so little but she was given to us by a neighbor who was hopeful to see her spayed before she moves. (She also paid for it...) The vet who did it neutered my boy Pinball last month and did an excellent job. Sally on the other hand ended up kind of screwed. They ended up making a "larger than normal" incision on her tiny body, which wasn't fully explained to me WHY but they meantioned having to manually express her bladder so I assume that's why? Due to the extra cutting, the vet also gave her a Convenia shot without telling me which scares me because there are many awful side effects and even death because of being given this shot. I mean she gets it at 3 months old and it will still be in her body at 5 months old!!! That idea doesn't sit right with me but I had no options and it's done now. They also forgot to give her a rabies vaccine until AFTER she had already woke up...My poor baby! Her body is no doubt seriously taxed from having organs removed and drugs pumped in. One thing they didn't want to give her was pain meds though so she came home screaming for the first day and a half and even shredded my arm for trying to PET HER!

Even through all that I figured she would be happy to have a good meal when she got home. I know theybsay appetite comes back over 24 hours but ALL my animals have always eaten when they got home. Sally did not. In fact, Sally hasn't eaten a real meal since roughly 9:30-10pm on THURSDAY! (Since she couldn't eat after midnight) She's probably ate a total of 3oz canned food and probably only about 1/4 cup of kibble since then. She also drank an ounce or two of KMR. So not "nothing" but I'm scared it isn't enough to prevent fatty liver. :/

So what are my options and what should I look for? Is this normal for a female cat? Ugh. She was 4.2lb (Which surprised me because I was concerned she hadn't even made it to 2lb given how small and lanky she was!) when I dropped her off at the vet but after removing everything she came home looking like a skeleton. I can feel every bone in her body and if she didn't have her coat, I know that I could see everything. So she isn't "fat" with anything that could stand to have been lost to begin with!

Even though she seems a little better today, she has been and still is pretty lethargic. She gets up to potty and that's about it. She hardly gets up to eat, I normally end up putting her in front of the bowl and that encourages her some but only for 2-3 bites before she goes back to the bed to sleep.

Sorry for typos, I'm using my phone. This is what my poor baby looks like now.

Honestly, I have spayed hundreds of kittens at 2 lbs, approx 9 weeks old.

The girls take slightly longer to recover than the boys, but they do just fine.

The lack of appetite is usually caused by the anesthesia. Another few days and she will be back to her norm

The covenia? I've used it many times, not for spays but other things, even very young kittens/4 weeks old, and never had any issues there either.

Looking things up on the internet is great and informative, but also seems dramatic, like if a very rare case is documented, it's all over, making it sound more common than it actually is.

I have no idea why the incision would be larger, but certainly don't need to because of expressing her bladder.

So allow extra time for her to feel better due to this as well.

So no risk of issues like hepatic lipidosis even if she isn't eating anywhere near her "normal" amount? :/ Yesterday she only ate 2-3 bites of canned and 2ish tablespoons worth of kibble.

The Convenia concerns actually came in from first hand experience from others, not random documentation on some site I don't know. I still feel I should have been told and given an option to do pills if I wanted. But again, what's done is done. Nothing can undo it.

From what I gathered they had to express her bladder in order to even spay her. Idk. I've had tons of animals s/n in my life but this is just the oddest one of them all. Cutting her more than normal, expressing her bladder, cat litterally screaming for almost 2 days straight, cat still not eating normal after 4 days...Not to mention forgetting her rabies shot then giving it after she wakes up! What else could they have forgotten?!

CHWx said:

So no risk of issues like hepatic lipidosis even if she isn't eating anywhere near her "normal" amount? :/ Yesterday she only ate 2-3 bites of canned and 2ish tablespoons worth of kibble.

The Convenia concerns actually came in from first hand experience from others, not random documentation on some site I don't know. I still feel I should have been told and given an option to do pills if I wanted. But again, what's done is done. Nothing can undo it.

From what I gathered they had to express her bladder in order to even spay her. Idk. I've had tons of animals s/n in my life but this is just the oddest one of them all. Cutting her more than normal, expressing her bladder, cat litterally screaming for almost 2 days straight, cat still not eating normal after 4 days...Not to mention forgetting her rabies shot then giving it after she wakes up! What else could they have forgotten?!

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Yeah, it's kinda odd/different.

Yes, you should have had the option of covenia BEFORE it was given, of course.

The bladder expressing to spay her? That's a new one on me, as well as the bigger incision............rabies shots should really wait until 6 months of age too.

Hepatic Lipidosis can happen at any age, although in a kitten this young is uncommon.

She is eating too, it will be more worrisome if she were not eating at all, which causes her body to signal a breakdown in stored fat to use for energy, rather than food.

If you are concerned and she is not eating half of her normal caloric intake, then if it were me, I would syringe feed her either kmr formula or wellness core pate with added water a couple times a day until her appetite returns, just to ensure plenty of caloric intake.

HP is very preventable, simply by getting calories into a cat, so if she is eating only a tiny amt, then simply syringe feed her.

Why didn't they want to give pain meds?  Spaying is a VERY painful procedure and it sounds like your cat is showing signs of pain (not eating etc).  I would see if you can't get some pain meds from your vet.  If not find another vet who will get her some pain meds.  My cat Mouse was spayed at about 16 weeks, she was extremely subdued and painful for the first few days.  She also got her last set of shots that day (which I didn't want to do, but she was an adoption cat).  She was on pain meds for 5 days after her procedure.   Did they do any presurgical bloodwork? 

I'm sorry that you little girl is in pain. I can't really offer any help, I can only share my experience. I had 3 kittens, 2 males, 1 female, spayed/neutered. The males didn't receive any pain meds or cone. They were fine within a few hours. The female did receive a few days of pain meds & a cone. It took her longer to recover, but considering the difference in the procedure between male & female, it's understandable. I'd be concerned also if I received no pain meds. 

They didn't give pain meds because "pain will keep them from bouncing around". Ow. I have a crate for crate rest if that was the issue!!! But they wouldn't go for it. :/

I tried syringing the KMR but she fought me over it. She will take a little bit from a bottle though but only a little at a time.

If we would have paid out of pocket for the surgery/shot, I'd have held off a few months for everything but due to the whole situation of it being paid for by someone else I took the offer. My husband and I are suckers for stray kitties and if someone makes a "donation", be it offering a s/n, shots, food, whatever, we can't really afford to say no if we want to help as many as possible. She did eat up about half of a Sheba can which made me feel a bit better! Most I've seen her eat in one sitting since everything happened. She also ate a bit of Nutri-Cal a few minutes ago. She's just so skinny and young, I want to make sure she gets her nutrition.

Well the good news is Sally is feeling better no doubt. She's gone back to being El Diablo and terrorizing the house. Now I miss her being calm. Lol! She keeps running laps around the house, pouncing on the boys and attacking them, swatting the dog and attacking myself and my husband when we try to get dressed. Can't wait to be able to actually play with her to get all that energy out!!!

Her appetite seems better this morning too. My husband gave her some kibbles last night and this morning a good bit of it was gone. I went to make their breakfast (canned) and gave the dog her food, put Pin and Oliver's food up on the (tall) table and turned around to grab Sally's bowl so I could feed her in the bedroom and in the few seconds it took to grab the bowl and turn back around, she had gotten on the table and was eating with the boys! Probably continue to feed her seperate for a bit to keep some KMR mixed into her food to help build her back up but it's so nice to see her being a normal kitten again and EATTING again!