Huge cat neutering surgery takes place to combat unwanted litters and spread of FIV and FELV disease

Subsidised neutering surgery in Ramsgate

A  cat neutering surgery has been held by social media group Missing Cats and Strays in Thanet (MCASIT), teamed up with Vets2u.

More than 30 cats were neutered on February 8 at the Vets2u mobile unit at the office in Ramsgate. Neutering days organised by the group and vet partnership usually treat between 10 and 20 cats.

The neutering is offered at a subsidised cost. MCASIT and the vets first teamed up to offer the low cost service during the pandemic in a bid to help under pressure veterinary surgeries that were having to put off routine surgeries to cope with the demand

Lucy Cook, who runs the missing cats group, said: “From a rescue perspective, this was an absolute nightmare. We live in a depressed area and there are a lot of homeless cats in shelters, strays, and unfortunately a lot of people have to leave cats behind due to landlords not allowing pets.

“Neutering is so important for cats health, and keeps down the number of unwanted litters. FIV and FELV is the disease that we have found in pockets of areas in Thanet in certain areas where they have been high levels of unneutered cats.

“Unfortunately, this can be spread to neutered cats as well, hence why it’s such a problem. Every year we pick up deceased cats that have been hit, the majority of them are usually unneutered males making their journeys to find females.

“Sometimes it gets so bad that we’re picking up 2 to 3 a day . Vet2u nurses and vets volunteer their days off to make the surgeries happen. We usually have neutering days every other month.

“We have had a number of surprises, such as boys that turned out to be girls, girls turning out to be boys, a couple that turned out to already been neutered, and we had some funny names. We had a boy called Mabel this time around!”

The missing cats group also catches strays for neutering and in 2021 carried out ops on an entire feral colony.

Cats 2kg and upwards can be neutered, The next neutering day is on April 19 and places must be booked via the MCASIT facebook page (link below). There are limited spaces. Cost is male £50 and female £75 and payment must be made when booking.

Vet2u’s books are currently open for new clients. Find the website here

Find Missing Cats and Strays in Thanet on facebook here

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11 Comments

    • Worth remembering that our loves wildlife King has killed more birds in his life than probably thousands of cats have, just like his sister, his brothers, his sons-who also both virtue signal how much they love animals while blasting them with shotguns, his mother, his father etc also have.

      Most of the damage done to animals has been done by greedy humans-building more motorways & roads on their habitat, hunting them to extinction so they can sell their ivory for money & body parts to end up in superstitious idiots pots for potions, because they enjoy killing things, or just to mount them on the wall.

      • Steve needs urgent educating. It’s a statistical fact that the rapid loss of our own wildlife is down almost entirely to the activities of predatory cats.
        In Australia, for example, owners of cats are entirely responsible for the damage to the population of wildlife there. Cats are to be kept indoors at night and the owners punished for any infringement of these laws.
        I remember when cats wore collars with a small bell attached, the purpose of which was to alert birds. This should be compulsory again and some regard for smaller creatures maintained.
        Steve, keep to the issue here which is the neutering of domestic cats. The killing of wildlife in other continents is another issue and I would agree with you entirely. But neutering is not killing and is applied humanely. My concern is for the massacre of wildlife in Britain and the terrible damage that cats perpetrate in that regard.

        • Yes Robert, domestic cats are cutting down the Amazon, hunting big cats, Elephants, Rhinos etc to extinction. I am sure in Australia they are the ones that hunted/are hunting Tasmanian Tigers, Kangaroos, Koala Bears etc to extinction.

          I had no issue with the neutering domestic cats to keep numbers down point. The problem was saying they are mass murderers, while ignoring the supposed monarchs of the UK blasting wildlife here & overseas for no reason their entire lives-which is far worse than what a vast number of cats will kill in their short lives, humans hunting animals, deforestation etc.

          Worrying about what happens only in the UK is akin to the narrow vision stop plastic in Thanet lot & the motorway/shop spraying idiots-when the UK only produces 1% of the emissions worldwide & Thanet wouldn’t even register on the map & backslapping themselves, while having no broader vision & no answers as to how to stop the countries making around or over half of the pollution-US, China, Russia, India.

          As for the UK argument-here is the death toll at Windsor not even a decade back.

          More than 7,000 wild animals were killed on the Windsor Estate during 2013, according to a Freedom of Information request by campaign group, Animal Aid. While the figures for January were not recorded due to ‘a change in both staff and regime’, the number of animals killed throughout the rest of the year totalled 7,129.

          The victims included:

          3901 pigeons
          1161 rabbits
          772 jackdaws
          325 squirrels
          191 crows
          159 foxes
          56 roe deer
          28 hares
          9 moles

        • Let the experts educate you Robert, it is not the cats causing the decline in birds for decades, but as I said humans due to pure greed.

          https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/advice/how-you-can-help-birds/where-have-all-the-birds-gone/is-the-number-of-birds-in-decline/

          There is no scientific evidence that cats are having any impact on bird populations in this country as many millions of birds die naturally each year, mainly through starvation or disease, or at the hands of other predators. It is believed that cats tend to take weak or sick birds and it is likely that most of the birds killed by cats would have died from other causes before the next breeding season.

          Millions of baby birds are hatched each year and most of these will die before they reach breeding age. Again, this is quite natural and each pair only need to rear two young that survive to breeding age to replace themselves and maintain the population.

  1. i wish they would come around my back garden and do the lot of the things !! ,and i couldnt agree more with robert edwards and his opinion

  2. Neutering cats in the UK is the subject on here. Personally, I am opposed to all blood sports and the killing for some perverse pleasure, whether by members of the Royal Family or by other criminals using dogs, etc.
    But I am immediately concerned with British birds and their declining numbers, entirely down to cats left to roam freely.
    Dogs must be kept under control and so should cats.
    There is nothing wrong with focussing on Thanet. Whatever happens around our own doorstep is a more realistic approach rather than taking on the whole world. We can do something very practical on a local level rather than ranting on about global issues over which we have little control or none at all.

    • Dogs aren’t kept under control by many of their owners, who allow them to run wild attacking cats, other dogs, birds & people.

      A simple keeping them on a lead at all times, muzzling & not owning or walking dogs you are unable to physically control or ridiculous numbers would solve it. Then you add in the noise & pavement pollution.

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