From the neutering a cat that isn’t yours thread - I saw a number of mentions about clipping or notching ears. Is that a standard system in North America?
The barn where I board got a couple of barn cats from a feral spay/neuter, find safe non pet homes organization as our mouser disappeared last October. I thought the missing ear tip on the tom and the slice on the queen’s ear were cat fight injuries but now I’m wondering if they were deliberate.
Yes, it is known as “snip and tip.”
Good thing is it identifies neutered and spayed ca ts.
Howevet, I volunteer at a local shelter and we have a sweet male who came in with that done. And it seems the missing ear tip is putting off adopters.
Around here they take the tip of the ear off. We have had a couple done and it didn’t bother them post surgery. The spay neuter was a bigger deal then having the ear tipped.
Very common here as it identifies a neutered cat so no further surgery (especially for females) is done.
Oddly, of the 2 6mo kittens I got from a local shelter, 1 has been ear-tipped (& microchipped), the other has not.
The non-eartipped cat seems to be missing the tip of his tail.
Whether that was intentional, or from an injury is not clear.
Though both kittens came through the same shelter, they were fostered at different places.
As a card carrying sponsor of a Feral Cat Community, I appreciate the tipped ear. My clowder is usually stable with about 5-8 visitors stopping by the feeding station behind my barn each day. I keep a game camera on them. When a stranger (untipped) shows up, I mark the time. Subsequently, I set my trap for that time. MOST of the time I successfully trap the new cat, take it to the spay/neuter site, and have him/her back in 24 hours. The tipped ear means the kitty avoids the trip to the vet! The tipped ear is immediately released back to go about his/her day. So far this year, I 've taken 5 females to be spayed (I don’t trap in the winter as kitty can become too cold in the outdoor trap between the time I set and check) --if one does the math, 10 MILLION cats are now out of the feral life in the next 8 years. (Each female can have 2 million descendants in a lifetime). I have names and photos of all my ferals --but never see them personally. They are wild as they come!
Ear tip removal is done to the TNR cats where I am too. Easy visual that an animal has already been neutered.
The three TNR cats I adopted for my barn did not seem to even notice they lost the tip of their ear.
How sad for those people that they can not see the cat instead of just the tipped ear.
It definitely helps avoid trapping and hauling cats that have already been sterilized to the clinic. Unfortunately in the case of cats that are adoptable, I’m sure it could have a detrimental effect on their adoption prospects. I trap cats in a neighborhood that has a lot of ferals, and a lady that feeds them pays. It adds up, so of course we have to do a few one day and then a few more after a couple of weeks. It is always “best” to try to go in with a lot of traps and trap everyone at once, but there are challenges with that (namely, paying for it all at once, and getting that many appointments at once).
Around here you will find a green spot on the incision.
We have that too.
The problem with that on feral cats is that you can not see that tattoo if you can not touch the animal.
It is standard procedure in my area as well to tip the ear when neutering ferals. My sister adopted her neighbor’s cat when they no longer wanted him and while I was visiting she commented on how odd it was that his ear had been ripped so evenly straight across, apparently in a cat fight. 
Until I explained to her it meant he had been neutered she had no idea what the tipping meant.
That’s very clever, and saves a lot of extra trapping and stress on the animals. @Fat_Dinah do you explain the tipped ear? Some people might be reluctant because they don’t want a cat that gets into fights with other animals. I was watching the new tom carefully to see how he’d get on with our existing (non mouser) barn cat because I thought that ear tip was from a fight. The old cat is currently bossing the new two though I’m trying to convince the queen that he’s just a big wuss.
Our tom is turning out to be quite sociable (not cuddly, but sociable) and has figured out the cat treat shakedown. 
The queen is very shy. She comes out when I’m alone and is coming towards me. Still a bit skittish when I move towards her but that’s getting better. She stayed put when I walked past 4-5’ away tonight. We have a cat door (hole, no actual door) into the feed room and we have an arrangement where she pops out and watches through the cat door as I put her treats on the floor just inside the feed room.
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