Age of spaying

[laura-m-w]

I called the Animal Shelter where I'm adopting my kitty from (they told me that they don't want to seperate her from her mother and littermates before saturday) just to see how she's doing and they told me she's being spayed today. She's only 8 weeks old. Isn't that a bit young for a cat to be spayed? I admit, since she's my first cat, I don't know much about cats, but I thought a cat wasn't supposed to be spayed before 6 months.

 

[lionessrampant]

Nope, pediatric spays and neuters are a WONDERFUL new thing that's becoming more and more common. As long as she weighs 2lbs, it's perfectly safe and doesn't have any negative effects assuming kitty can handle anesthesia (pretty rare issue). In fact, they tend to recover much faster and it allows the shelter to spay and neuter kittens before they leave, so that they take no changes later.

My current kitties were all strays who were fixed late because of that (I adopted them all as adults), but the shelter I work with fixes all of our kittens and we've had nothing but positive feedback about the pediatric s/n policy.

 

[twstychik]

From Mar Vista Animal Medical Center

At what age can my cat be spayed?
The traditional age for spaying is six months, however, this practice has enabled kittens to be adopted from the shelters unspayed. Often the new owner fails to return for spaying and the result is further contribution to the pet over-population problem. The last ten years has brought us a great deal of research into “early” spaying and we now know that there is no problem with spaying as early as 8 weeks of age. Our hospital finds such tiny tissues difficult to manipulate and we like to spay our female patients when they weigh at least 3 1/2 to 4 pounds.

 

[nekochan]

Yes, younger spay/neuters are becoming very common, especially for animal shelters so they can have the pets fixed and recovered before they are adopted out.
Personally my vet prefers to wait until older when possible, she recommends about 6 months old although she will do it at a younger age this is what she recommends (she's more of a holistic/integrated medicine type vet.) Our new Maine Coon kitten's breeder actually recommended spaying/neutered at an even later age, between 7-9 months old.

 

[goldenkitty45]

The before 6 months USED to be the norm. Now with people's cats getting pregnant at 4-5 months old, its necessary to spay/neuter as young as possible. The shelters don't want another batch of kittens to be brought in, so they spay/neuter as early as 8 weeks and minimum of 2 lbs.

I used to have my guys done at 7-8 months old with no problems. But now I can see the point of doing it early. However, I'd rather wait till they are 3 - 4 months old.

Charlie was done about 3 or 3 1/2 months old before we got him at 4 months.