Based on a talk given in November 2000
Early Desexing - the surgical and socialisation consequences
This talk is one of the subjects of the Valentine Charleton Seminar on 16th December 2000. It is a subject to which I have come to by accident, and mainly through my association with the Cat Protection Society, particularly Nance Iredale.
At the request of Dr. Paul Waters (Concord Animal Hospital, a mainstay of the CPS), I started to desex kittens of 10 - 12 weeks old in late 1990. Hmmm. Don’t the years fly! The technique had been used in welfare situations for some years (10, and in some areas 12 years previously), and had not been shown to cause any undue consequences. The big benefit was that kittens could be given out ALREADY DESEXED, and this would greatly reduce both the ‘chase up’ burden for the CPS, and the problems caused by 20% of female cats giving birth to at least one litter before being desexed. The other benefit was that there should be fewer females turned in with their litters because they'd become a burden by having kittens.
The Surgery
I’m not a surgeon by inclination, but I found I enjoyed the ‘fat-free’ surgical site which allowed me to use ‘keyhole surgery’. Mind you, the whole cat was tiny, except for the ovaries and uterus! They seem to be almost the same size as 6 month old cats, which makes it very easy to find the necessary bits. The other surprise was the speed with which these babies recover. Virtually within minutes they were all looking for food, some were even trying to climb. And the girls especially could never ‘make a mistake’!
I became an advocate of the early desexing, and reduced the ‘spey age’ from 6 to 4 months for all cats when I once again traveled overseas.
On returning and setting up the Cat Clinic in 1994, it was the natural thing to do - home out a few desexed babies. Well, this being a ‘free market’ society and having stumbled onto a significant demand, we were soon homing 100 kittens a year, and then up to 250 per year. That’s a lot of babies to make a difference for! My records show (and it was the same for the CPS, RSPCA and welfare associations all over the world) that up to 1/3 of animals homed out never get anything done for them after they leave. The owners just never bring them back. Now, since early desexing has become widespread, the pets won’t be brought back with ‘an unwanted litter’, and people still can bond with their cat while it is a baby.
Everyone Loves a Playful Kitten
The story goes on. People want younger and younger kittens, so they can have the whole ‘kit ‘n’ caboodle’ of those ridiculous kitten antics. They recover so well, and research has shown no serious problems associated with ‘microspeys’ and ‘microcastrates’, so I now desex as young as 6 weeks old (600g bodyweight). Now these kittens really shouldn’t have left their mother yet, but the difficulties of trying to keep them healthy in the ‘colony’ situation of the Cat Clinic or elsewhere are worse than the problems of homing them out young. So that’s what we do. And now we have another problem.
Who Teaches Kitten Manners?
Kittens aren’t taught ‘The Rules of Fair Play’ by their mothers, they’re taught by their siblings. So a single kitten household is very likely to create a ‘spoilt brat cat’, and I do mean evil.
What happens is that because kittens develop socially between 2 - 7 weeks old, and go through predatory behaviour by 10 weeks old and onto social fighting by 14 weeks old, the new owners have to be mother and siblings for their new baby cat. Strangely, people expect their kitten to learn human language (which takes too long), and don’t use ‘cat language’ to teach good manners. Thus the kitten ‘gets away with murder’, and goes on to cause mayhem when it is older.
In apartments or households where there are no children, and not many visitors, these cats become basically agoraphobic, and respond violently to any change or confrontation. Now we have a cat that is sociopathic, and not much fun to live with. So our new approach is.......
GET TWO KITTENS - ITS HALF AS MUCH TROUBLE, FOUR TIMES AS MUCH FUN AND ONLY TWICE AS EXPENSIVE.
They then teach each other ‘The Rules’,have a ‘friend for life’, and remind each other they are cats so they are less frustrated by modern city living.
The surgery which lead to the confident homing out of young kittens has turned out to be simple and efficient.
The discussions with new owners has made up for it in complexity though...
I became a vet so I wouldn’t have to talk to people, so who’s having the last laugh now? The cats of course - as they’ve made me ‘the spokesperson for the cats’ best interests’!*
(*courtesy Marty Becker DVM)