Care for post op (spaying)

[alextrg78]

Hi guys, am getting Tessa(3 months old kitten) spayed this Friday October 7th.

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• alextrg78
• Mar 2, 2014

Am a first time fur parent.

Am getting really worried bout her post op care(no thanks to the internet and all the nightmare experiences some have had, and also a friend who had her cat recently spayed, and the internal stitching opened up, and her cat had to go through another surgery due to the infection being so bad).

I know that with the current medicine practice they will use internal stitching which will reduce the problems of the stitching getting scratched or opening up.

Also read that since due to the anesthetic used, she will be less prone to hop around like a mad girl cute kitten for the first few days at least.

A little background, I adopted her and her brother together(he is going to get his 'balls' chopped neutering done once she is settled). They play wrestling games like kids(duh!) a lot. So I will have to separate her while she heals. One thin is whenever I crate one of them for misbehaving, the other would go and sit by the crate as if visiting the other one, yes, it's adorable. But makes me worried bout having to separate them for so long(especially when I'm at work - I leave my house at 6.30am, and only get back around 8pm, currently they do whatever they want in the house, I leave Earthborn kibbles out, and I feed them once in the morning and once in the evening, there's usually some kibbles left when I get home, unless it's the fish based one, then it's gone clean)

Here's my question to those of you who have had your cats spayed.

Do you cage them? If yes, how small/big should the cage be? Right now my friend has loaned me her cage, but it's like really small. This is both of them in the cage, wanted to see how crammed it was.

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• alextrg78
• Mar 2, 2014

As you can see, the litter box that can fit is also very small

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• alextrg78
• Mar 2, 2014

Bout buying a bigger crate, most crates now scale according to the width and height, so my concern is she is going to end up scaling the cage 'walls'! And yeah, these two are jumpers and climbers, unlike my friends cats who can't even jump up onto the kitchen counter

(or maybe I should be smacking my own coz mine would always end up sleeping on my dining table). Am so worried that she is going to do a spiderman hanging on the cage when I get home and her stitching exposed *Biting nails*

I have a spare room... You can fit a queen size bed, a wardrobe and a dressing table. I was thinking of confining her to the room. If I do use it, then I will only leave a litter box, and probably the spare queen size bed for her to sleep on(I know , I'm pampering her to bits) and leave the air conditioning on for her as the room gets a lot of evening sun. BUT I did read of one cat owner who tried that, as in keeping her cat in a spare room, and her cat started jumping and clawing at the door wanting to get out, she believed it was coz her cat missed her other cats.

Ok, I know I'm being OVERLY protective of my cat(do I need medical help???)....

Any advice please?

 

[stephenq]

Hi

congrats on the new cat and your new life being owned by one!

You will get a number of opinions most of which will probably be similar with minor differences.  I think the biggest thing is that most of us will say this is not a big deal, and that the vast and overwhelming majority of female cats come through the spay just fine.

As to your question, i personally wouldn't crate a cat post spay surgery unless she was acting in a way that could lead to harm, very unlikely.  A cone around her head only if she showed a proclivity to lick the incision.  Some vets like you to use some form of paper litter post spay so that litter doesn't adhere to the site, low risk and not very relevant in most cases.

She will likely come home and be fairly quiet as as she adjust to the waking up process and the post surgical "tiredness" for a few days and will probably do exactly what you want which is rest.  You may be given some pain meds, these may also keep her calm.

Loosening her stitches is unlikely.  Watch for infection, low risk but possible, redness etc at the incision site.  She really should be fine. 

Stephen

 

[stephanietx]

Congratulations on your kitties and for being a responsible pet owner and having them spayed and neutered!  Good job!  As for the after care, as mentioned above, there really is no reason to confine her.  If you do, you can put her in the bathroom for a little while, but I have a feeling her "brother" won't like being separated from her.  Cats are pretty good about limiting their movement if they don't feel well, so again, confinement really isn't a big deal.  If they offer you pain medication, make sure it's not Metacam or something that contains Metacam.  That's a big no-no and has some serious side effects. 

 

[alextrg78]

Just to update , her surgery went well on Friday, pic was taken on Saturday.

So far so good, no oozing. Was an overly concerned parent, tried to put her in cage, but she was not happy. So cleared up my spare room, put a queen size mattress, aircon on 24 hours at 29 degrees celcius. Tried to keep her separated from her brother, she meowed profusely, so over the weekend(Sat/Sun) observed their behaviour. Seems to be ok, he seems to know that he shouldn't disturb her too much.

Feeding her wet food twice a day, kibble available all day out and water of course.

And at doctor advice on using non-sand type of litter(I currently use Everclean), I went and bought Cat's Best Litter...

OMG. Does the wood smell or does it SMELL And literally, I don't know how you guys use it. If it's pee, it breaks down into sawdust. Ok that I get coz water breaks down the 'plastic shielding'. Then if it's poop, it does nothing? I look forward to going back to Everclean.

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• alextrg78
• Mar 11, 2014

PS : Ignore the text in the pic, I posted this on my FB to share with friends what internal stitching looks like coz most vets here do external stitching coz it's cheaper.