She’s a barn kitty. Our vet recommended she be kept in the house for a FEW WEEKS post op. That seems like a long time to me. I can definitely do that if it’s best.
We don’t have a ‘clean’ room in the barn, like a tack room or other closed off area. Just her crate. Also no one is at the barn very much so to keep an eye on her she needs to be home with me.
Just wondering what your experiences have been. What worked well; what didn’t. She’ll be getting spayed in a week or so.
Thanks.
My girl was spayed by a “country vet” about 11 years ago – she was stitched up quite Frankenstein-like. I do not know if modern small animal vets stitch up cats after a spay or use other methods for closing incisions. Males they don’t even bother to stitch – the interior of the scrotal sac just sort of shrinks and fuses together when there’s nothing to keep it filled any longer.
I’m assuming that’s the reason behind her being inside for two weeks – that incision should really have ample time to heal up before she can get into trouble. I can easily visualize her having it open up if she gets into a scrap with another cat or gets a little too energetic while hunting.
Good points…I hadn’t thought about hunting or other cats…she’s a wee kitty. I was thinking in terms of keeping it clean.
She a speed demon in the barn and flying up the hay. That could be bad!
If she’s already started to self groom, she’d keep it clean herself – however you’d want to make sure she doesn’t chew/pull the stitches out!
I’m not a vet, and my big dumb cat is a boy, so I don’t have any experience with cats of my own, but between working for a spay-neuter clinic and volunteering for a TNR program, I can tell you how each of those places handled discharge instructions.
Depending on how old she is, how used to handling she is, etc… there’s the “feral” method - this is what the TNR program I used to volunteer with said: http://www.operationcatnip.org/info/display?PageID=12347
It’s not what you’d do for a pet kitty, but the ferals seemed to handle it well.
These are the instructions given out by a SNAP clinic I know:
http://snap-nc.org/PostSurgeryInstr.pdf
That’s what I’d personally go by, if Kitty would be OK in the house and you have a room she could be restricted to. Generally, the younger they are, the faster they recover from surgery, so if she’s a young thing, you can probably get away with a week of restricted activity, if everything is healing well.
Do you think she’ll handle life in the house OK, or would that be more stressful for her than just staying at the barn?
I would guess that the reason he/she said weeks is that you may not be able to keep a close eye on her in the barn. Typically after 7-10 days, things are going to be healed up, but we still encourage owners to inspect the incision site and such for two weeks. Maybe your vet doesn’t think you’ll be able to if she’s back outside?
I have a sun porch that she can be in during the day. Typically, we crate her at night to keep her from predators. That’s where I had her the first day we caught her. She isn’t feral anymore. She’s a little love who likes to mouth fingers. A real sweetie.
She uses the litter box at the barn so it shouldn’t be a problem. I’m not a cat-in-the-house-person so it will be a bit of a challenge but only for a little bit. She loves being in the barn and is just a hoot to watch zoom around. Even the old cat who we’ve renamed “Walter” for being so grumpy is starting to play with her. It turned out GREAT!
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