For most cats spay/neuter is a bottom
line at adoption, but for those cats living in low-income households it’s often an unattainable
luxury. This is especially true when there’s more than one cat to fix causing the price to go up exponentially. These caregivers want to act “responsibly”
but they just don't have the front-end money to fix their cats -- even
at low-cost nonprofit clinics.
And even if they can afford the lower rates, the longer drive to get to one of these clinics keeps it out of reach.
Yet far from being “irresponsible,” many of these low-income
caregivers make a valiant effort to keep their cats “kitten-free” using other
methods of birth control. Here
are a few of the most common:
Delay. If their pets are kittens, they delay
sterilization assuming they’ll save up the money by the time the cat is old
enough to reproduce. What escapes them
is this can happen as early as 16 weeks, which is why shelters with staff
veterinarians won’t release kittens until they’re fixed – sterilizing them when
they’re as young as 8 weeks and including the cost in the adoption fee. Ironically, the caregivers who can’t afford to fix their cats also can’t afford an adoption fee
so they look elsewhere for their pets – and are not disappointed. Finding a free cat or kitten is easy –
they’re readily available from friends, relatives, and coworkers or simply
roaming around outdoors -- typically the offspring of other cats whose caregivers also couldn't afford to get them fixed.
Isolation. Many caregivers try to keep their female cats
indoors while they’re in heat – which is every two weeks from early spring to
late fall – but inevitably someone opens a door without looking and the cat is
out in a flash – often pregnant by the
time she returns home.
Even those who succeed in keeping their female cats indoors
often assume it’s okay to leave them with their male relatives – thinking that
sons, fathers and brothers won’t impregnate their mother, daughters or
sisters. Not true. Cats have no cultural mores to prohibit
incestuous behaviors. In the cat world any female cat is fair game
for an intact tom. Those that realize
this may try keeping the male cats in one room and female cats in another, but
of course this plan is foiled the moment someone forgets to close a door. And – the stress it puts on the caregivers is
considerable.
Selective
Sterilization. Still another common method of kitten control
in multi-cat homes is to fix one sex and not the other. A major flaw with this is
that it’s not always easy to tell the sex of a cat and by the time you realize
“Harry” is really “Mary” she may already be pregnant.
And since it’s so much cheaper to neuter a male than spay a
female, the males are often the ones fixed, so inevitably the female cats get
pregnant anyway – sneaking outdoors when they have the opportunity.
Even when the money is there to spay only the
females, the male cats will find other females to impregnate – or will
start to spray and lose their homes for a problem that could be prevented by
simply neutering them.
As valiant as these attempts at birth control are, they are
all largely ineffective. The only way to
prevent kittens is sterilization – a simple surgical procedure that not only
is 100% reliable, it also increases the probability a cat
will keep his or her home long-term. Once
sterilized, cats are better housemates – no longer spraying, yowling or kittening.
In most of central and northern
New Mexico, we provide free vouchers to low-income caregivers committed to the
life care of their cats. These vouchers pay the full cost to spay or neuter their cats at local veterinary clinics who subsidize the surgery costs. If you know
someone living in our service area that has intact cats, refer them to
us. They – and their
cats – will be glad you did.
