Difference in Spay/neuter at Vet’s Office vs. Animal Shelter/neuter Program or Clinic?
Question by alihazelnut: Difference in spay/neuter at vet’s office vs. animal shelter/neuter program or clinic?
My 4 mo. old kitten is being neutered next friday. I found an organization that does the surgery for $ 35. My private vet was $ 184. Is there a difference in the quality of the care? He will also have some take home pain meds, they were only $ 10. The place was really nice BTW. He had his second kitten shots there today :)
Best answer:
Answer by Kathleen
No difference. I had my male cat and female b*tch done in a spay/neuter clinic. They were both very well-cared for. It was $ 50 to neuter my cat, $ 110 to spay my b*tch, and $ 15 per microchip.
My vet charges $ 100 for a microchip and $ 250 to neuter a cat and over $ 400 to spay a dog.
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It should be fine. They offer those programs to encourage people to get their animals fixed. If they were doing something bad or wrong, people wouldn’t take their animals there and it would defeat the purpose.
Often, it may have more to do with making the kitten “servant” more at ease.
Spay/neuter programs typically have you bring in the kitten in the morning, withholding food and water the night before. They do the spay, and you pick up the kitten later in the day after she has come out of the anesthesia, but she will still be groggy. Oh, pain medication is rarely needed. They bounce back quickly.
At the vet, they may want to do a health assessment, perhaps update any shots needed, and will do blood work. You sometimes can bring them in the night before, which is useful if you have multiple cats since the kitten cannot have access to food or water.
And, they may keep your cat overnight once spayed, and you pick up your kitten the next morning, when she is fully alert. They may or may not use dissolvable sutures. Sometimes they give pain medication to make you feel better about it.
You may also feel more comfortable in asking any questions that may arise once you get your kitten back.
As far as the operation itself, no real difference.
no some are cheaper but offer same care
No difference except the amount of time the vet can actually spend with the patient for aftercare and so forth. Usually the clinics are more crowded and there is a higher risk of the cat catching something (Upper respitory infection) because the clinics will take anything that needs to be sterilized.
If you say this place is really nice than hopefully it’s better than the rest.
I’m not even sure if the clinics do bloodwork beforehand. That may be the price difference. But it is a routine procedure, and your cat will do fine!
Some spay/neuter clinics are privately funded by donations, so they can offer discounts to low-income people. Others can offer discounts because they have a larger volume of patients so they don’t have to mark up their costs as much. Others will actually use more dangerous techniques because they are cheaper than safer drugs and monitoring equipment.
Places where spay/neuter clinics typically cut costs:
* They may use injectable drugs only instead of placing a tube to protect the patient’s airway and administering gas anesthesia. Gas anesthesia with an endotracheal tube is the standard of care, because it can be controlled more easily and has fewer side effects.
* They may not use pre-anesthetic pain medications and sedatives. This means that your pet will have more pain from the surgery and that the vet will have to use more drugs to induce anesthesia. These drugs have more serious potential side effects than pre-anesthetic drugs, so it’s riskier for your cat as well as more painful.
* They usually do not use IV fluids during the surgery. Anesthetic drugs lower the blood pressure, so IV fluids are needed to make sure the blood keeps perfusing all the vital organs like brain and kidneys during surgery.
* They almost always do not monitor the patient well during or after the procedure because they are doing so many surgeries. Close monitoring during surgery and recovery are the most important ways to reduce the risk of anesthetic complications.
* They may provide less effective pain control because the more effective drugs are more expensive. For cats, cheap clinics may use butorphanol (Torbugesic or Torbutrol), even though studies show the pain control only lasts for a few minutes. Buprenorphine (Buprenex) is much better at pain control in cats and is used at most private vets.
If the clinic you found is not funded by donations, I wouldn’t risk it. Since cat neuters are so quick, not even all private vets use gas anesthesia and IV fluids, even though the AVMA recommends it. But make sure you at least check about monitoring, and pre- and post-op pain meds. Compare both places, and make your decision.
Add: A “spay/neuter clinic” that is run one or two times a year by local vet clinics is totally different than a year-round clinic. The once-a-year kind is funded by vets and vet staff completely donating their time and there is not much difference between those surgeries and the ones they do for pay. The only small difference is that they are a little busier.
Basically, the only difference is the amount of money that you spend and who gets it. Both are performed by very qualified personnel under sterile conditions with the exact same benefits and risks.
In our locality it is actually the same people doing the procedures. Our local vet clinic has a neuter/spay program that they run once a year.
Most clinics are funded by donations – they exist for the sole purpose of ensuring that animals get altered, which prevents the shelters from being overwhelmed with kittens that need to be euthanized (and adult cats that haven’t been altered, and spray or urine mark in the house). It’s a public service, rather than a for-profit venture. They tend to be “no frills” but are perfectly safe. In fact, most of them use vets that volunteer their time away from their private practice, or a vet that is employed by the shelter. In many cases, these vets are actually more experienced in spay/neuter surgeries, since they do so many of them. The only potential problem – and a very small chance – is that you will need to take your cat home shortly after being neutered, and he may still be a bit groggy from the anethesia. That’s the only drawback I can think of.
the only difference is the cost.