When to Spay a Kitten

Cat overpopulation is a daunting problem for animal lovers. No matter how many alley cats are brought in off the streets, thousands more are homeless, hungry, and not likely to find a nice warm home anytime soon. One thing all pet owners can do to lower the number of future homeless kittens is to spay and neuter cats. Even an indoor cat may sneak out and come home with an unwanted litter of kittens.

  1. Spay Surgery

    • Considering that a female kitten is capable of becoming pregnant as young as four months, it is best to have a new kitten spayed as soon as possible. Many cats have already had at least one litter by the time they reach the animal hospital for spaying.

    Traditional Practice

    • The traditional age to spay a kitten is six to eight months. Safety has long been cited for this age restriction imposed by many veterinarians. Veterinarians have been trained in the past to cater to the surgical and anesthetic needs of kittens over six months of age. Kittens this age are strong enough to tolerate the anesthesia used for spay surgery. The main thing that held the veterinary community back from elective pediatric surgeries on cats was a lack of research. The long-term effects of spaying at an earlier age were not studied until recently. This left animal hospitals and pet owners wary of the idea of pediatric spay surgery.

    Early Spays

    • Within the last 25 years, there have been major advances in the field of pediatric spay surgery. Though early spay and neuter surgeries are relatively new to North America, the benefits have been noted and the practice is growing. Kittens are now being spayed as early as eight weeks. Contrary to popular fears, spaying eight-week-old kittens does not cause any ill effects either in the short term or the long term. In fact, according to Susan Little, an Ottawa, Ontario veterinarian certified in feline practice, there are no long-term health differences between kittens spayed at eight week and eight months.

      Animal shelters and rescues are taking advantage of early spays. These shelters can now have kittens spayed before adopting them out. This means that rescues can now be certain kittens placed in permanent homes will not add to the overpopulation crisis.