WHY NEUTER?
There are too many kittens born each year, that is, there are not enough homes for them all. Many of these homeless kittens are destroyed or abandoned, and this alone is a good reason to neuter.
Neutered cats live longer, make better pets and may well have a better life.

TOMS
– un-neutered adult male cats smell strongly. Tom cat urine has a pungent penetrating odour that is unacceptable in the home. A perfectly toilet trained cat still carries his scent around with him. Some toms live mainly outdoors, which makes the problem tolerable
– from January until late June they have a one-track mind and spend long periods away from home looking for receptive mates
– because they are trying to find a mate, they can often be involved in fights with other toms, and occasionally non-receptive queens. These fights can be very vicious and result in bad injury
– a free roaming tom could be fathering countless kittens – it is NOT just the responsibility of the she cat’s owners to prevent unwanted offspring

QUEENS
- the obvious reason for spaying she cats is to prevent the birth of unwanted kittens
- she will not “call” if she is neutered (that is, come on heat) so your garden will not be overrun with hopeful and noisy males, spraying the territory with their scent. It is almost impossible to keep a calling female indoors, and their heat recurs every 3 weeks

WHAT DOES THE OPERATION INVOLVE?
Neutering in both sexes can be carried out from around 5 months old, but check with your vet first. They can be neutered when they are older, or when they have had kittens (your vet will tell you when this needs to happen, as queens can become pregnant very soon after having a litter).
In the male, the testicles are removed, so not only is the cat infertile but the production of male sex hormone stops, and therefore so does the wandering, the spraying and the fighting.
In the female, the ovaries and womb are removed. Again, hormone production ceases and heats stop occurring.
Both operations are done under general anaesthetic, which involves the cat staying at the vets for the day, or occasionally, a day and a night. Recovery is rapid, and almost every cat is back to normal within 24 hours. The females will have a small area of clipped hair and a stitch.
There is a very small anaesthetic risk, but vets do these operations on a daily basis, operating on hundreds of cats a year with very few problems.

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