Spaying and neutering
It is important to know that Spaying and neutering cats is a legal obligation in Belgium. Cats become sexually mature around the age of 6 to 7 months. From then on, a queen can get an average of 2 litters per year if she is mating a male during her heat period.
To prevent pregnancy, we advise you to have your cat spayed or neutered on time.
Reasons to spay female cats are the prevention of unwanted litters, no more inconveniences related to the heat period (complaining vocalisation, restless behavior, house soiling, running away, no risk of uterine inflammation and mammary gland tumors and no more transmission of certain diseases through sexual intercourse).
Advantages of having your male cat neutered are the absence of sexual behavior, less of a tendency to walk away, fewer fight incidents with paired disease infections by wounds, less strong odor urine, less chance of spraying and house soiling.
We recommend that the male and female are neutered and spayed before the age of 5 months. But if necessary it can be done from 700g of bodyweight.
Before The Procedure
In both neutering and spaying you are asked to restrict food 12 hours in advance. This is important in for the safety of the anesthesia, otherwise the cats can vomit and get complications.
Neutering and spaying are performed under general anesthesia. This means that the veterinarians must properly assess the condition of your cat before.
At Vetocambre we have three check-up options from which you can choose.
- Check up 1 is a general clinical check of your pet.
- Check up 2 is a general clinical check, urine analysis and blood analysis.
- Check up 3 is a general clinical check, urine analysis, blood analysis, ultrasound and Xray.
These check-ups will look at the blood levels of your cat to ensure that the liver and kidneys function normally and eliminate the anesthetic agent. Protein levels provide information about the binding with the drug.
The blood is also checked for signs of hormonal disease, diabetes, infection or inflammation. An ultrasound and Xray are important to look at the size of the organs; heart, lungs and kidneys. Depending on the results, the risks of the intervention are estimated.
Especially in older cats or with a medical history this is very important.
The cats are brought in at 9H00 and can be picked up between 16H00 and 19H00. We recommend keeping the cat in for 10 days after the procedure.
The procedure
Vetocambre has two operating theaters and three operating tables.
Both operating rooms have high quality monitors and materials to ensure that the operations run as smoothly as possible. For maintenance anesthesia we work with isoflurane, a very safe anesthetic gas that ensures that patients wake up quickly.
During the narcosis, specialized devices such as a capnograph and a pulse oximeter ensure careful monitoring. All patients receive an intravenous catheter and they wake up quietly in the recovery that is specially equipped for this purpose. The prevention of postoperative pains means a lot to us..
The ovaries are removed from the female cat thru an incision in the abdomen. Only when we notice that the uterus does not look healthy anymore (filled with fluids, cysts, ...) it will be removed.
Then the belly is sutured in 3 layers. First the abdominal muscles, followed by the subcutis and finally the skin. Males are neutered by removing the testicles thru an incision in the scrotum. The wound is not sutured but heals spontaneously.
After 10 days there is a check up to remove sutures and check if everything the surgical wound is healing correctly.
For an appointment or additional information regarding spaying or neutering you can contact us.