Feral Cats: "No More Kittens For You"

I spent almost 5 hours on Sunday morning volunteering at a spay and neuter event organized by the Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon. During those 5 hours, I saw 82 feral cats in all imaginable colors and physical conditions. More than half were under 6 months. More than half were female. The average weight of the animals was 4 to 5 lbs (small). Many were covered with feces and urine from their panicked thrashing in the traps/cages. About half a dozen were under 8 weeks of age--they still got spayed or neutered anyway. There were large 8- and 9-pound toms, survivors and fighters ("no more kittens for you!" we'd cry out).

Of the 82 cats, one was euthanized and one had already been spayed but had a very large abdominal hernia that got fixed. That means that 80 cats total were desexed in just under five hours. There were three vets doing the spays and one doing the neuters; all were from clinics in the area. The FCCO has experienced workers who managed the order in which the animals were sent into the surgical truck so that the spay vets went from one cat to the next with sometimes only a minute or two between. Cat neuters (and dog neuters, usually) are done without sutures and even in a regular clinic they usually can be done in under 2 minutes. Shave, clean, slice open, squeeze, cut, tie a knot, push the cord back in, bam, you're done. Next! The spays are far more complicated but let's do some math: assume 60 female cats spayed in a total of 300 minutes; with three going at the same time, it comes out to about 15 minutes per cat.

There were volunteers who managed the trap distribution, intake, and reservations; all of this was set up many days before the event itself. The traps containing the cats were brought in by the people who fed or lived near the feral colonies. An FCCO worker was in one end of the surgical truck, isolated from the rest of us except for a small window. She did the initial ID and pre-op sedation (she jabbed them through the cages--she was really fast!). She then passed the cats through the window into the main part of the truck. The next set of volunteers (vet techs from local clinics) did ear clipping, flea treatment, ear mite treatment, aging, sexing, weighing, vaccinations, and pre-op shaving and cleaning. I was the medical recorder: I wrote down all of the data for each cat, logging what was done to it, making sure everything that was supposed to be done was indeed done, and noting any additional issues or observations. I also folded towels, drew vaccines, and tried to stay out of the way. There were volunteers who removed empty cages for cleaning, volunteers who transported cats from the surgical truck to the recovery area, and even more volunteers there who checked on the cats every few minutes. (The cats will stay in the cages for 24 hours and are then released back to their colonies.) There were volunteers manning an autoclave who cleaned and returned surgical instruments to the spay area every hour or so.

It was an impressive assembly line from top to bottom.

I asked one of the FCCO people if any studies had been done to determine if spay/neuter/vaxing prolonged the life of the feral cats, and she said, who would fund such a study? Still, a reasonable person could reasonably assume that these efforts must have some positive effect: reduced competition for resources, reduced incidence of disease, etc. Even so, I was surprised at her answer. For an organization that relies entirely on private donations, they surely have a better answer than that to give to their major donors!

The experience was sad and somehow uplifting at the same time. It was sad to see so many small, dirty, skinny cats passing from hand to hand, but the hands were caring and respectful.