Spay/Neuters

[Tambrey]

Well...the majority of people from Scooter's fund responded back to me (I am still waiting on some and will send reminder e-mails this week) I have a little over $1200 confirmed to go towards taking care of the ferals here...

The local vet usually charges $90 for females and $70 for the males...they were wiling to give me $7.50 off of each one...

I stopped in at the hospital in the city last week, and spoke with the office girl there...she talked to the vet today...he will give me a 15% discount per cat, so that works out to $77 for each female and $50 for each male, and when that is averaged out, it comes to $63.50 per cat, plus a bit extra to deworm and clean ears etc while in there...

I had asked the local vet to drop to $65, but he would not do it...so the vet in the city gets my business!

With the confirmed amount I have right now, I can get 17 cats spayed or neutered...which will take care of the majority of adult cats around here...

We are going to do 3 a week...next Monday I take in 2 females and 1 male...we will try to stick to that plan so I can keep watch on healing etc...they will use dissolvable stitches on the girls...
And they will also examine the girls before surgery to determine if they are pregnant and how far along...I am hoping I take in ones that have just gotten done nursing, or I am fairly sure are not pregnant...

They wanted NAMES...OMG...I think what I will do is take pictures of each ones face, and give it a name, for ME to keep track of who has gone in...I asked about tipping the left ear and she had never heard of that...

I think I will send an e-mail from other larger TNR programs and how they do it...

She asked about vaccinations...I would LOVE to do that...but weighing it all out...I would rather be able to spay/neuter more of them and pray the best as far as vaccines go...

So Monday Mist, Tree and Branch go in to the vet...

[Traci]

Actually, it would be more feasible to do all the females first, since THEY are the ones going into heat, producing babies. Any money left over, start on the males.

As for names, there are 26 letters of the alphabet, start with A. So, the first three cats you take in, name them starting with an A. The second batch of 3 cats you take in, name them starting with a B. And so on.... Taking pictures before you take them in, or at least taking your camera with you and taking a picture of each cat DURING THE EXAM, can help because a tech will be there to hold the cat and you can be free to snap pictures. When you get home, load the pics to your pc folder, with their appropriate names, dates, etc.

Do you even know how many cats you have, how many are female, how many are male?

Do you have a seperate indoor-only room to monitor them as they recover? Since you don't have air conditioning, will you have fans for that room? Please remember that when recovering from surgery, body temperatures from healing can be abnormally and slightly raised. Also, as you know, you'll have to monitor incision sites for any signs of infection, which if there are any infections, without air conditioning or fans, this is going to exacerbate the problem in terms of fevers caused by infections.

Since none will be vaccinated, are you going to be able to keep them strictly apart from your other pets during recovery?

Don't you have spay/neuter clinics in your area? If so, those take the costs down considerably, and most spay/neuter clinics ALSO vaccinate at the time of spay or neutering. Yes, I realize you're rural, but I can't remember if you've said there are spay/neuter clinics in your area.

[Traci]

As an afterthought, perhaps you should keep the chipin page going, as long as you update, explain what the costs have been quoted to you, etc, and keep records to show.

[Tambrey]

I will start at the last one first...LOL...nope...no spay/neuter clinics..no TNR programs...I have asked the humane society and animal control and they both said they have tried numerous times to get the vets to do just one Saturday a month, open their doors for a few hours for people to bring in just 1 cat per human to be spay/neutered....but the vets will not do it...

I asked a vet once, when he was in at the garden center when I worked there, about starting a TNR program and he said no way, why should they spend their money on cats, and he was laughing as he said it...a disgusted sort of laugh...guess which vet I will not be ever going to or referring people to....I really wanted to just turn and walk away from him right there in the yard, but I could not do that....

I am hopeful that if this goes well with these cats, that I might start up a non-profit for the Siouxland area (all surrounding towns within driving distance of Sioux City) or work with their local vet if there is one in town...to do discount spay/neuter/TNR programs for even a significant discount and hopefully in time, the non-profit would be able to pay for those services for the feral cat populations...we have an animal rescue, Noah's Hope....maybe I can work through them to raise the funds since they already are a non-profit...just earmark the funds I raise for spay/neuter of cats or dogs that need it done...

We do have a basement, with separate outside door and door from the kitchen that I always keep closed, so they can recover down there...I can keep an eye on them for the week following surgery and make sure they get enough food/water and no infections...and I can put bedding down for them in an area I can separate off from the rest of the basement...my mom has wood etc at her farm that I can build a temporary recovery room for them..it would be cool, but also free of drafts or dampness...and they would be confined enough to not be jumping up onto the furnace or other basement appliances or catwalking along the heat ducts...

I want to get the females done for sure...but there are 2 toms that fight with everyone - even the young males who could care less about *beep* yet...so I want to get them neutered for sure...and that will hopefully help eliminate new pregnancies in the females that are still waiting...

I have tried to get a count of the regulars here, and I am going to guess at about 25 adults, plus about 7 or 8 "teenagers" and 11 kittens born this year...

good idea for the alphabet...she said I could not use numbers...and some of the cats do have names...

[Traci]

Kittens can be spayed/neutered at 3 months of age, providing they are of appropriate weight and excellent health. Females can get pregnant at 3-4 months of age. Please also take that into account. Ideally, waiting until 6 months of age for spay/neuter of kittens is my choice, but in this situation, please talk to your vet about it.

[Tambrey]

I have always waited til 6 months to do spay neuter...when I could...and of course inside cats are....
The kittens Ic ared for when I first came here...Gremlin and Yoda...my friend who took them had to wait over a years to get Gremlin spayed because her vet would not do it until the cat weighed at least 6 pounds...and Gremlin was such a little runt!

I am not sure if I can open the chipin back up again, or just start a new one...with a link back to the original one for Scooter...I think that would be the easiest way to do that...and as someone suggested, start a blog...but then....I guess the chipin page can be a "blog" in its own...I do not need one more place to visit on the internet every day!!

[Tambrey]

Well, I took the first 2 females in today...could not catch Mist to take him in, so he will go next Wednesday with Sable, the other very active male.

I decided that I will get those 2 males done next because they are about the only 2 that are making anyone pregnant...they do not give the younger ones a chance. If I did NOT get those 2 done, they would be making females pregnant while I was taking in 2 a week to get spayed. This way, they will not be making any more, but hopefully still have enough of their territorial instincts to keep others away while I work on the rest of the females.

They got spayed and dewormed with Profender. Dissolvable stitches were used, so no worries there.

Tree pooped in her carrier on the way home, but she does not seem to have much on her. When we opened the carriers in the basement, Branch came out first, then Tree...I took a litterbox and food and water down...Tree went right to eating and drinking...Branch is more cautious and skittish still.

Otherwise, all went well with the first two. We'll see how the guys fare next week!

[slvrwhispr]

You're living the dream, Tambrey!

Seriously, you're doing awesome work. I'm so happy for you and proud of the lengths you've gone to in order to keep your local critter population healthy and safe.

[k9Karen]

Good luck Tambrey!! I admire what you're trying to do and I hope all goes well..

[Tina B and crew]

That is awesome Tambrey! I am so glad you are able to do this. I was reading some depressing news about the stray/feral cats in Athens, Greece today and some good news was needed. Keep up the good work!