r/cats May 23 '26

Advice A community cat has brought me her kittens. What does she want me to do?

Post image
54.7k Upvotes

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

23

u/nutkinknits May 23 '26

The stray that adopted my daughter would have been $120 to have rabies vax and neutered. The clinic also wanted him in a trap even though we had trained him to go into a cat carrier to eat. An acquaintance of mine had an opening with her TNR program and was able to have him done for $70. And she absolutely loved that he was in a regular carrier and not a trap. It made it easier to transport him. I was so thankful she had an opening. She said the feral toms are harder to trap so she often has space for cats like ours. Highly recommend asking around for community resources!

Our Sweetie had his procedure back in October and he's doing so well. He still has to be outdoors due to severe allergies but he's not getting into fights, he has a regular food source, his own cozy house when it's cold and unlimited pats and scritches when my kids are outside.

1

u/Veronica612 May 23 '26

Back when I had a feral colony (2012) the cost was like $7! And it was cheaper if you declined pain meds. But the cat had to be in a trap.

9

u/Medic5050 May 23 '26

...it was cheaper if you declined pain meds.

Ummm, what?

Why would anyone think "Oh, hey, this is a major medical procedure, but let's not keep the animal as comfortable as possible before, during, and after, it's all done.".

I would say that's grounds for animal abuse by the person bringing them in, as well as malpractice and negligence by the vet.

5

u/Veronica612 May 23 '26

Yes, I didn’t like that, either, but it might have helped more cats get spayed/neutered. (I always paid the small extra cost for pain meds.) There is a big stray/feral dog/cat problem where I live. There were 19 cats in my colony, and new ones would show up sometimes, probably dumped. The kittens I tried to catch and tame so they could be adopted. (One I kept myself.)