I've had to fight my behind off with a local vet to get them to spay/neuter my kittens at 16 weeks old. I hear of all sorts of people who get it done at 12 weeks, does anyone done this to know how to present the best arguement to the vets? It seems like they're plauged by superstitions (sp?) that have been discredited by cat specialists.
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Looking for a Good early spay/neuter arguement
- Thread starter mihoshi
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You might have better lack contacting shelter vets, they might do spay and neuter very early. My vet wouldn't do it until 6 months, and it seems a lot of vets are that way.
Here is a really good report:
http://www.winnfelinehealth.org/repo...ly-neuter.html
The rescue I volunteer with spays/neuters at 12 weeks of age.
Katie
I would have reservations on early spay/neuter with a vet lacking solid experience with doing it.
Rescue orgs do it to get cats out as quickly as they can to make room for more, they've got the solid experience with it.
Mine were done at 8 weeks, but my vet also rescues and 90% of her surgries are pediactric spay/neuter.
Rescue orgs do it to get cats out as quickly as they can to make room for more, they've got the solid experience with it.
Mine were done at 8 weeks, but my vet also rescues and 90% of her surgries are pediactric spay/neuter.
I don't know how it is in any other parts of the world, but where I come from, finding a shelter vet willing to work with a breeder just isn't going to happen. Believe me, I've tried this route. Now of course, it might be different in other parts of the world, but that's how it is here. I've tried to present the argument that responsible PEOPLE (not just breeders) should spay or neuter ALL kittens not determined to be eligible for active participation in a breeding program - so it shouldn't matter that I am a breeder - I would hope I could be thought of as a responsible PERSON - but it does matter. The sheer fact that I am a breeder is seen as irresponsible, no matter my personal standards of ethics. We don't even get far enough into the conversation for anyone to examine my personal standards of ethics.
Sad, but true.
~gf~
I know you're looking for a good reason for Early Spay and neuter, but I don't know if it's a good idea, all of the time. I got my Bengal Simba neutered at 4 1/2 months, and I think it stunted his growth. He's still a beautiful Bengal, but he's really small, and he's over 2 years old now. He's just a hair larger than my little Siamese girl SunLee, and I think if I hadn't had him neutered so early, he probably would have been a much larger cat than he is. Simba is a tiny little Bengal.
I'm curious if you know of any scientific backing to this? I'm just curious if you've read about it anywhere else or anything.
I've seen graphic video of vets spaying/nuetering 12 week old kittens. They made it look very easy and safe. In fact in the females case, safer than when she is older. One of the vets in my area I understand to be a pioneer in early spay nueter.
I have heard it is harder for larger vets with big hands to do it.
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- #8
Well years ago I was always told that spay/neuter before 6 months was nothing but problematic, but if you look at most vets (and veterinarian school for that matter) they tend to focus on dogs a lot more than cats. My vet tech teachings were the same way and I didn't even know that it was best for the kittens to keep them for 12-16 weeks (my books and co-workers said 8 weeks).
gayef, I'm having exactly that problem here. We moved here last year and this is my first litter since then, I've only found 1 local shelter/vet and he is not interested in hearing a single thing I have to say and will cut me off before I can finish a sentence as if I'm a little child. That really gets me ticked as I'm the only cat breeder in my little farm village community so he shouldn't have a reason to act that way towards me. Basically, the only local breeders I've heard about in this county are BYB's and mills that sell to the local Petland with breeding rights, so I don't see why none of the vets are willing to listen to my case when I'm demanding to be held accountable for my kittens future.
HopeHacker, I would also like to know who told you the early spay/neuter stunted your Bengals growth. Some cats are just not within the breed standard and since it is a Bengal it could have a recent ancestor to another breed that was smaller. For the most part the cat specialists see stunting as either a very rare occurance or a myth, but you're kitty may be in that small percentage that has a physical side effect, it's hard to tell. So many breeders do it that young, and a lot of people show alters, so if it was a negative thing causing major problems I don't think it would be as popular of a thing to do. At least the good breeders will care about the cats overall health and appearance instead of just getting them altered and into a new home as quickly as possible.
gayef, I'm having exactly that problem here. We moved here last year and this is my first litter since then, I've only found 1 local shelter/vet and he is not interested in hearing a single thing I have to say and will cut me off before I can finish a sentence as if I'm a little child. That really gets me ticked as I'm the only cat breeder in my little farm village community so he shouldn't have a reason to act that way towards me. Basically, the only local breeders I've heard about in this county are BYB's and mills that sell to the local Petland with breeding rights, so I don't see why none of the vets are willing to listen to my case when I'm demanding to be held accountable for my kittens future.
HopeHacker, I would also like to know who told you the early spay/neuter stunted your Bengals growth. Some cats are just not within the breed standard and since it is a Bengal it could have a recent ancestor to another breed that was smaller. For the most part the cat specialists see stunting as either a very rare occurance or a myth, but you're kitty may be in that small percentage that has a physical side effect, it's hard to tell. So many breeders do it that young, and a lot of people show alters, so if it was a negative thing causing major problems I don't think it would be as popular of a thing to do. At least the good breeders will care about the cats overall health and appearance instead of just getting them altered and into a new home as quickly as possible.
It may just be in Bengals. I was told that they need their testosterone in order to grow properly, and that probably because he was neutered a bit too soon, he didn't have enough hormone to grow he proper size. I was told this by a breeder.
Simba's parents are both large, and his father is huge. Simba had very big feet, when he was a kitten, but after his neuter, he didn't grow much at all. He's about the same size as he was at 5 months. He hasn't grown much since then. I don't have scientific proof of this.
I had always thought that if you neutered them young, that they would grow larger, but maybe that's different for Bengals.
Simba's parents are both large, and his father is huge. Simba had very big feet, when he was a kitten, but after his neuter, he didn't grow much at all. He's about the same size as he was at 5 months. He hasn't grown much since then. I don't have scientific proof of this.
I had always thought that if you neutered them young, that they would grow larger, but maybe that's different for Bengals.
Spaying/neutering a cat before it's fully grown does not stunt growth, on the contrary, if you spay/neuter a cat before it's fully grown the growth palates won't close up as fast as they should meaning the cat gets longer bones and actuarally becomes larger then it would have if it would have been kept intact until fully grown.
I can't see why it should be different for Bengals. They don't have any physiological "quirks", at least not to my knowledge.
While I under the reasons behind it, I really don't support it. I prefer to spay females between 6-8 months and the males at 8-9 months.
The biggest problem is that if your cat is allowed outside then they will get pregnant before that time. But if you have indoor cats who never go outside, I don't see the purpose of neutering at a young age.
The biggest problem is that if your cat is allowed outside then they will get pregnant before that time. But if you have indoor cats who never go outside, I don't see the purpose of neutering at a young age.
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- #12
I do apprechiate other's opinions and thoughts and respect that you have strong beliefs, but this has always been the best course of action for me and I've yet to have a single kitten be effected negatively by this. That is a true point about indoor cats, but how many times have you heard that "Ms. Snippers went into heat and ran out on me! She came back with kittens!"
I used to work for a shelter, and this was one of the top things we heard when a litter was dumped off. Heck it happened to one of my siamese cats before (thankfully she didn't concieve though). Another reason I prefer to do it early is that it's hard to place an already full grown cat as everyone wants to "raise" one and have it when it's the cutest. Besides the fact that people lie their butts off and tell you they'll have the kitty spayed at six months and a year later you find out they're breeding them! That's an irresponsible risk on my part that I'm not willing to take; every kitten, grand kitten, and so on born that way is my fault, and many of those would die in shelters somewhere and I'd never know. I'm not willing to jeopardize a rarer breed from a careless mistake, and if I didn't spay/neuter them in advance I would lose my credibility with the Mau community (which is extremely strict and unforgiving).
While I'm more than capable of hanging onto kittens until they're adopted and/or taking back kittens or cats if their new homes don't work out, it is difficult to prolong placing them due to waiting 6 months to spay/neuter them. Most pet quality kittens are pre-reserved or have a deposit on them before they're 8 weeks old, I don't think most people would understand why they paid for a kitten and ended up with an adult. Unfortunately I can't trust the advise of the average vet, who could trust a vet that would suggest declawing a cat saying it has no negative side effects (which is what the local vet said when I brought in my cat family for rabies shots, when I said 'no' and started naming off declawing problems he looked dumbfounded like I was saying some new radical idea).
I used to work for a shelter, and this was one of the top things we heard when a litter was dumped off. Heck it happened to one of my siamese cats before (thankfully she didn't concieve though). Another reason I prefer to do it early is that it's hard to place an already full grown cat as everyone wants to "raise" one and have it when it's the cutest. Besides the fact that people lie their butts off and tell you they'll have the kitty spayed at six months and a year later you find out they're breeding them! That's an irresponsible risk on my part that I'm not willing to take; every kitten, grand kitten, and so on born that way is my fault, and many of those would die in shelters somewhere and I'd never know. I'm not willing to jeopardize a rarer breed from a careless mistake, and if I didn't spay/neuter them in advance I would lose my credibility with the Mau community (which is extremely strict and unforgiving).
While I'm more than capable of hanging onto kittens until they're adopted and/or taking back kittens or cats if their new homes don't work out, it is difficult to prolong placing them due to waiting 6 months to spay/neuter them. Most pet quality kittens are pre-reserved or have a deposit on them before they're 8 weeks old, I don't think most people would understand why they paid for a kitten and ended up with an adult. Unfortunately I can't trust the advise of the average vet, who could trust a vet that would suggest declawing a cat saying it has no negative side effects (which is what the local vet said when I brought in my cat family for rabies shots, when I said 'no' and started naming off declawing problems he looked dumbfounded like I was saying some new radical idea).
This is OT..but if you want a reason to spay/neuter before 6-8 months of age...even for an indoor only cat...just take a gander at the pregnancy forum. Too often a person who delays getting their cat fixed, can find their cat "accidentally" gets out and gets pregnant.
Katie
The best argument is the fact that every single major organization (the AVMA, AAFP, AAHA, etc) is supportive of pediatric spay/neuter.
If you can just convince the vet to observe a pediatric patient during and after surgery, that is often enough. It is hard to argue with a female kitten who is running around and playing three or four hours after surgery. Adults take 24 hours or so to resume normal activity.
The issue of shelter vets and breeders is a tough one. On the one hand, obviously it is important that every pet cat be s/n. On the other hand, it's easy to see how a vet would find it tough to justify using charity and/or taxpayer dollars to provide reduced cost surgery for a breeder, especially when their services are in such demand for low-income guardians, shelters, rescues, ferals, etc. Many shelter clinics walk a tightrope in their relationships with the local veterinary community and the only way many can really operate is by being able to say with reasonable certainty that they are serving a totally different clientele than the local vets' and the animals they treat would simply never see a vet if their clinic did not exist. The easiest answer would probably be to find a private practice vet who will do the surgeries, if there is one who can be convinced to give pediatric s/n a try.
If you can just convince the vet to observe a pediatric patient during and after surgery, that is often enough. It is hard to argue with a female kitten who is running around and playing three or four hours after surgery. Adults take 24 hours or so to resume normal activity.
The issue of shelter vets and breeders is a tough one. On the one hand, obviously it is important that every pet cat be s/n. On the other hand, it's easy to see how a vet would find it tough to justify using charity and/or taxpayer dollars to provide reduced cost surgery for a breeder, especially when their services are in such demand for low-income guardians, shelters, rescues, ferals, etc. Many shelter clinics walk a tightrope in their relationships with the local veterinary community and the only way many can really operate is by being able to say with reasonable certainty that they are serving a totally different clientele than the local vets' and the animals they treat would simply never see a vet if their clinic did not exist. The easiest answer would probably be to find a private practice vet who will do the surgeries, if there is one who can be convinced to give pediatric s/n a try.
With all animals, sterilizing before puberty causes them to be longer and taller than they would be otherwise. This is because the release of estrogen or testosterone is what causes the growth plates to close.
For us female humans, this is why we only grow another inch or so after our first periods.
However, this larger size would be the case whether the animal were neutered at 8 weeks or 6 months, since many females and most males are still pre-pubescent at 6 months.
I don't know enough about Bengals to know if they are different in this regard but it would seem strange that one breed would be an exception to someting that is a rule across species.
Oh Heavens, I would never DREAM of using shelter resources to obtain reduced cost pediatric spay/neuter!! What I thought was being tossed in as an option was to ask the low- or no-cost spay/neuter clinics who they used as their vet and then contact that vet directly - some, if they are at all open to working with breeders, are willing to offer a "breeder discount". But the sad truth, at least in my area, is that many vets who do provide their services to low- or no-cost spay/neuter clinics are also heavily anti-breeding. I have never gotten past the sentence where I tell them I am a breeder! They either (not so politely) tell me they do not work with breeders or else they just hang up on me.
I would be all over having my kittens altered before going to their forever homes if I could find a competant vet willing to perform the procedures at a reasonable cost. So far, I haven't found that vet. The closest I came to it was a guy who confessed to me that he learned how to do early spay/neuter on ferrets while he was in vet school but hasn't done any since then and he wanted a huge amount of money to do it. I whole-heartedly agree with the message of "responsible breeders spay or neuter their kittens before going to the new homes". The message is a good one, but if the standards by which breeders operate continue to be heightened, then the vet community needs to keep up and the pet owning community needs to understand that they aren't keeping up at all. Many Vets just aren't willing to even consider the possibility because it isn't politically correct to support breeders, no matter how good or responsible they are.
~gf~
Hey Gaye...I called my vet office to ask if they would even consider spaying/neutering kittens from a breeder. They don't have any problems with that..but they gave me a LONG speech on why they don't feel comfortable spaying/neutering under 4 lbs or 4 months of age and that you could simply have it in the contract and charge a large spay deposit. I thanked her for her viewpoint and said that if contracts worked all the time, we wouldn't have the overpopulation we have and said that if that is their policy then I would try at other vet offices.
Katie
Katie
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- #18
Maybe it's just my area, but a lot of people think that if I can sell a kitten for $800 registered as a non-breeder then they can take that kitten with an altering agreement and just breed purebred but non-registered kittens and sell them for $300-500. It's happened to quite a few Mau people in the US. People lie plain and simple, and you have to be able to catch them in the act to do much about it.
I've seen people under altering agreements send a vet record of spay/neuter that turned out to be for another animal and then breed the cat without registration. If they think they can make a dime some people will go to great lengths to breed wrongfully. The sad part is, most of these kittens produced this way are the ones that end up in shelters or on the streets, giving everyone else a bad name (although, many breeders can easily give themselves a bad name anyways). You can't trust anyone.
I've seen people under altering agreements send a vet record of spay/neuter that turned out to be for another animal and then breed the cat without registration. If they think they can make a dime some people will go to great lengths to breed wrongfully. The sad part is, most of these kittens produced this way are the ones that end up in shelters or on the streets, giving everyone else a bad name (although, many breeders can easily give themselves a bad name anyways). You can't trust anyone.
Hi Katie,
Just as an experiment, why not try calling one or two of the shelter vets, asking if they would perform early spay/neuter on a breeder's outgoing kittens and see what kind of response you get. My guess, being very positive about it, is that you probably would receive a very uncomfortable pause in the conversation or else an abrupt No and the sound of a click when the connection is immediately terminated.
As for me, with regard to early spay/neuter, I have always maintained that I would seek it for my kittens IF I could find a competant vet who would perform the procedures at a reasonable cost. But it has been my very real experience that there are no vets in my area I find to be competant, who are willing to work with a breeder and who would charge me a reasonable fee not artificially inflated simply because I am a breeder. I have read the reports and articles on it and am largely on the side of supporting it. But it just isn't something available to me at present.
Contracts are what they are and nothing more - they serve only to keep the honest people honest. But they do not at all prevent the dishonest ones from doing exactly as they please. And sheesh do not get me started on our judicial system when it comes to legally enforcing those contracts because I will go into my tired old "you can buy my shovel but you can't paint it green or leave it outside to rust" routine yet once again and bore you all to tears. Add this to the very expensive process involved in filing recourse even if it was available to us and the considerable amount of time and effort one must go through in order to defend such recourse and most people simply throw up their hands in frustrated surrender.
In my biased opinion, it just isn't popular for anyone to support breeders. The laws don't support us, the rescue community certainly doesn't want us around, the vets don't offer their services to us or if they do, they artificially inflate the pricing and the pet owning community is being fed misleading information about how breeding is such a terrible thing by the rabid animal rights activists. Face it, we are getting pounded from all sides.
When do we, as breeders begin to have the right to stand up and say enough is enough? Why shouldn't we have certain expectations from our kitten buyers including trust that they will do the right thing? When do we get to say that we need to raise the standard for the pet owning community? Everyone else sure does yell loudly about how breeders need to be held to a higher standard ... when do we get to say and expect the same to you?
Just as an experiment, why not try calling one or two of the shelter vets, asking if they would perform early spay/neuter on a breeder's outgoing kittens and see what kind of response you get. My guess, being very positive about it, is that you probably would receive a very uncomfortable pause in the conversation or else an abrupt No and the sound of a click when the connection is immediately terminated.
As for me, with regard to early spay/neuter, I have always maintained that I would seek it for my kittens IF I could find a competant vet who would perform the procedures at a reasonable cost. But it has been my very real experience that there are no vets in my area I find to be competant, who are willing to work with a breeder and who would charge me a reasonable fee not artificially inflated simply because I am a breeder. I have read the reports and articles on it and am largely on the side of supporting it. But it just isn't something available to me at present.
Contracts are what they are and nothing more - they serve only to keep the honest people honest. But they do not at all prevent the dishonest ones from doing exactly as they please. And sheesh do not get me started on our judicial system when it comes to legally enforcing those contracts because I will go into my tired old "you can buy my shovel but you can't paint it green or leave it outside to rust" routine yet once again and bore you all to tears. Add this to the very expensive process involved in filing recourse even if it was available to us and the considerable amount of time and effort one must go through in order to defend such recourse and most people simply throw up their hands in frustrated surrender.
In my biased opinion, it just isn't popular for anyone to support breeders. The laws don't support us, the rescue community certainly doesn't want us around, the vets don't offer their services to us or if they do, they artificially inflate the pricing and the pet owning community is being fed misleading information about how breeding is such a terrible thing by the rabid animal rights activists. Face it, we are getting pounded from all sides.
When do we, as breeders begin to have the right to stand up and say enough is enough? Why shouldn't we have certain expectations from our kitten buyers including trust that they will do the right thing? When do we get to say that we need to raise the standard for the pet owning community? Everyone else sure does yell loudly about how breeders need to be held to a higher standard ... when do we get to say and expect the same to you?
If dishonest folks broke other contracts I bet they would be held responsible. It's sad to hear how you responsible breeders are treated.
If I were a vet and I lived near you I would take care of you and your animals for you.
If I were a vet and I lived near you I would take care of you and your animals for you.
