None of the clinics in my area will touch any small animals. The vet I went to is one of two in a 50 mile radius who will do rabbits. They charged $350 for neuter and $400 for spay, which was about $100 more then a cat there. Part of it is the different medication but also rabbits have to get pain medication because if they stop eating it for a day it can destroy their digestive system.
I agree that pets aren't cheap, but vets should not be charging such insane prices so that only the "very well off" should consider having one! Or no one should ever take in a stray(as my Seryy was), or take a free(low cost) kitten or puppy from an ad......wait until the owners have to turn them over to a shelter, where they will be vet checked,vaccinated and neutered/spayed,and one can get them for about $60!!!
My daughter had 3 females spayed and 1 male neutered at that clinic. All were littermates born to a stray that came to the horse farm.
As I am type2 Diabetic, I see my Dr. about every 3 months, and I believe most doctors are legalized dope-pushers! Fortunately I have very good insurance from the steel mill where my late husband worked. I pay $10 co-pay for office visits.
Don't know how to Edit our own posts, but I wanted to add that despite my good insurance, I still think most doctors are greedy money -lusters, who over schedule patients like an assembly line!
I am not very well off. I saved and budgeted to be able to adopt my cats for several years before getting them. The price you were quoted for a spay at a private practice is reasonable. Vets have expenses related to operating that they have to pay and there are low cost options for those who can't afford a private practice.
)What you are forgetting here is that in both situations the price that you are paying for services is heavily subsidized. The doctor is still getting paid a decent amount for your office visit, but that amount comes from insurance rather than you. The shelter cat or kitten's surgery ($60 seems very low, but ok...) was also likely subsidized by vets donating their time for free or at a reduced rate, and by local funding sources such as city-run spay/neuter programs. Something is paying those bills, but you just don't see it. As such they don't represent the real cost of the service that you are using.
My family had cats/dogs all my life into old age, but we would have never dreamed of spending the kind of money mentioned here! They were fed good quality food, had lots of toys, but no way on earth does the AVERAGE person have hundreds of dollars to spend on a pet, from the get go, and it should not be that expensive! That is flat out ridiculous. I love them, but I'm sure in heck not going to put them on the level of a GOD, or even a human, for that matter! They are animals, and a loving family, with good food, toys, and shelter, and being spayed/neutered should be enough, but insane vet costs, should put them out of a job! If I have to drive an hour away for a vet that is not out to rip me off, to pay for his/her YACHT/Country Club fees, then I will gladly do so!
I guess this is where you and I differ. I don't see the spay/neuter surgery as the end of my responsibility to provide medically for my cat. That first year I had an initial checkup with the vet, initial vaccinations with boosters, a neuter, a checkup for diagnosing/medicating herpes, and a vet visit where I found out he had a UTI that needed antibiotics and cystitis. Paying for that care is not putting my cat "on the level of a god", it was simply making sure that he was healthy and would remain so. I hate to think of what might have happened if I chose not to take him in. Maybe I'd be dealing with a cat that has kidney damage from an out of control UTI - who knows? I also don't see these costs as being insane, despite that I live in a more expensive area for vet care. They were quite reasonable and my vet worked with me to figure out financially what the best approach was to manage his health. The point of my posting that information was to give you some perspective on how expensive an animal can be, especially when things go wrong (keep in mind that these costs aren't even that extreme).
I sure hope you would bring them to the vet if you had reason to suspect that they were sick or injured...
As someone who’s kitty cat is currently losing their battle with mammary cancer (probably due to not being spayed early in life) I completely disagree.
