Vet won't fix our kittens - how much trouble are we in?

We've got two little darlings, a 15 week old female and a 13 week old male, and having called the only vet in the area, they won't sterilise either of them yet as they reckon they're too young. 

She's not had her first heat cycle and they're both getting on very well at the minute, but we're slightly concerned about letting them both be together at night just in case of any.. accidents. 

We've got them both booked in for a health check tomorrow so we'll obvious discuss when is the earliest they'll fix them. 

Are we right to continue separating them at night, even though I feel like this pushes one kitten out as the other sleeps with us (Female screams all night if we don't let her in the bedroom, so we can't swap them around each night), or will they be okay on the basis that she's yet to have her first heat cycle? 

The male cat is unlikely to be sexually mature enough to impregnate the female since he's only 13 weeks old, so they can be together still. However, by 6 months old he may be able to, so you do need to insist on spaying and neutering both as soon as possible. If your vet won't do it soon, perhaps you can try one in the next town?

Some vets like to allow males to mature a bit, maybe 8-9 months, before neutering. . .I don't feel it's necessary but if your vet insists I don't think it's worth arguing about too much. But the female really must be spayed before the male is 6 months old. There have been isolated incidences of males younger than that being fertile but I think that's rare. So you've got a couple months before things get to be too urgent.

That's comforting to know! We're going to get her spayed as soon as the vet will allow it, with her being that little bit older, and that little bit bigger. He'll be fixed shortly after! 

Scarlettleia said:

That's comforting to know! We're going to get her spayed as soon as the vet will allow it, with her being that little bit older, and that little bit bigger. He'll be fixed shortly after! 

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How much longer does your vet want to wait?

They want to wait until 6 months, which I think is cutting it fine when we've got one of each around the same age. I'll have a talk with them properly tomorrow face to face to see if they'll push the rules a little, considering they're together, because we're absolutely not equipped for lots of little floofers! 

That vet does not seem to know that a female can go into heat at age 5 month. I adopted a cat many years ago who was 7 months old and very pregnant, about to have kittens 2  weeks later. She was so tiny that the vet fixed her on the spot, said she had 6 kittens in her and was unlikely to have survived giving birth to so many kittens and if she did would not have been able to care for or feed them. She is now 18 years old and has never been ill, just starting to loose weight and her fur is getting shorter (she is a Birman with medium long hair) and is probably not going to last much longer but one never knows.

Female cats really need to be spayed prior to the first heat.  Not just for reproductive reasons either.  Nothing like hearing the vet say that the reason your cat got cancer was from a delayed spay.  If your vet won't budge, look at traveling to the next one.  My cat handled an hour and a half ride to a trusted vet just fine, and handled the trip home same day as major surgery just as well.

Cats take to travelling much better than is generally thought. Sure, they make a lot of noise at first but they all settle down pretty soon when they see that nothing is going to change. I took my cats in their carriers from SoCal to Washington State, it took three days, we stayed in Motel 6 during the night, and back to SoCal 18 months later. They travelled in the van that was loaded onto a flatbed trailer. At every rest stop I checked on them, cleaned litter boxes if necessary, made sure they had water.  They did NOT want to come out of their carriers, just curled up and went to sleep. Once we got home they still stayed in the carriers until I dragged them out. Since then they have never given me a hard time about going INTO the carriers, they seem to be a nice place to sleep.

segelkatt said:

 
Cats take to travelling much better than is generally thought. Sure, they make a lot of noise at first but they all settle down pretty soon when they see that nothing is going to change. I took my cats in their carriers from SoCal to Washington State, it took three days, we stayed in Motel 6 during the night, and back to SoCal 18 months later. They travelled in the van that was loaded onto a flatbed trailer. At every rest stop I checked on them, cleaned litter boxes if necessary, made sure they had water.  They did NOT want to come out of their carriers, just curled up and went to sleep. Once we got home they still stayed in the carriers until I dragged them out. Since then they have never given me a hard time about going INTO the carriers, they seem to be a nice place to sleep.

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You are so lucky.  My cats don't shut up when I travel with them.  It starts out with three cats yowling, and there isn't a moment where there isn't at least one yowling.  Even when one temporarily settles down, another or both will keep going and when he or she stops, the first to settle down tends to start up again.

But despite their vocal protests about how horrible life is, they stay physically calm.  They love when there's a passenger who can stick a finger in the cage for them to pet themselves on.  And yeah, due to my work being a jerk, I couldn't leave the cat overnight with the vet, I would have had to leave her two nights.  But the vet decided that after several hours she was medically ready to go home same day and despite being 14 and just having two tumors and a lot of mammary tissue removed she handled the trip really well.