Vaccination and Neutering

I was talking with a friend who has a kitten.  It probably is about 5 months old now and was found by her kids a few months ago.  I have been telling her to get her kitten neutered as soon as possible.  I think her vet is one of those who think it is best to wait until a kitten is 6 months.  She says that her vet now tells her that she has to wait 3 weeks as it just received another round of vaccinations and he does not want to neuter it until it 3 weeks after vaccination.  Both of my cats came from a rescue organization and were vaccinated and neutered/spayed so I don't know if they had to wait but I doubt it as they were about 3 months old when I got them.    I have never heard of waiting after receiving vaccinations to get neutered.   Is this just a vet preference or does it matter?  

The vet is actually being cautious and allowing the vaccinations to have time to build the needed immunities before bringing the kitten into the hospital for his neuter.  In an animal hospital you never know what germs are going to walk in the door and it is definitely good to have the kitten have full immunity to the things there are vaccines for.  Since he is a privately owned kitten, there is no reason not to wait.

It is totally different with rescues.  More often than not, we give them their first vaccines as soon as they are old enough so that by the time they go in to be neutered an spayed, they are already protected.  Secondly, some of us regularly use pediatric spay/neuter specialties, many of them mobile, which come and park their surgical van outside our door and we run the cats out to them and then back into the shelter or back to their foster homes to recover when done.  Aside from the obvious advantage of having the surgical suite at our door, there is also much less chance of our kittens being exposed to many disease, since all participants are supposed to be healthy on arrival, and the vet will send home any that appear to have any illness because it is not wise to do surgery on a sick cat.

The youngest our vet will take them is 8 weeks, and the lowest weight acceptable is 2 pounds, and we do it as early as possible on kittens so they can get adopted.  People always want the littlest kittens,, so the sooner we get them vaccinated, neutered and spayed, the sooner they can get permanent homes.  Since your friend's cat is already in his permanent home, there is no rush to get him neutered, and six months is certainly a good healthy age for a male.  We urge it a little younger on females because they can go into heat as young a four months, although that is somewhat seasonally controlled as well.  A cat who is four months in November or December is unlikely to go into heat (gestation is 9 weeks, and nature prefers kittens be born in the warmer months), but one who is four months in February or March is much more likely to go into heat earlier.