Blue here has been around for three months and so has Toto; and I just saw Baby Blue this morning after a few week’s absence.
We’ve called a vet to see about getting them brought in to be fixed. Might as well. I won’t stop feeding them as I like them around, but I also don’t want to turn the place into a cat sanctuary or dead kitten storage.
The vet says it’s on us to cage and bring the cats in.
Fine.
We’ve heard that the government will cover the cost of the vet’s care. Vet says no tho.
Some vets will give a discount for spay or neutering stay or feral cats, but back when I used to do that, it still was around 2000 bucks for females, and slightly cheaper for males. I imagine the price would be higher now.
There were proposals of passing TVNR laws to help people get more cats spayed or neutered, but they never passed. Plenty of people just want to “lower” the number of strays without thinking about also slowing down the speed they breed. Some of those opposed to making TVNR a bill, I’ve observed, are the kinds of people who would try to poison strays, or get dogs to kill stray or feral cats. Thanks to them, the bill never went any further than the Public Hearing stage. As far as I know, the last time they tried to make it a law was back in 2020.
About how to do it. If you regularly feed the stray or feral cats, to the point they’d actually hang around you while waiting for food, even if they won’t let you touch them, there’s a good chance you might have earned enough trust to put out a large plastic cage with food at the deepest end, and close the gate as soon as the cat’s tail is also inside. That’s how I brought 2 cats to the vet.
You should prepare a large towel or some kind of cover to block them from seeing out the cage, that way they can stay as calm as possible during transport.
If you are not confident, there usually are people with special trap cages who do this regularly. You can either ask to see if they are willing to do it, or borrow the trap cage.
I usually make a trail of dried sardines to the cage, which I try to disguise - cats can be little clever $#@&! and need inspiration to enter.
Again, wet food, sardine flavor - the cheapest thank Buddha- is smelly, well, fragrant for them and best as bait inside the trap cage.
Please also prepare an isolation chamber for the operated cats to recuperate. They only need a couple of days, we do not want the stitches to come apart.
Not sure about your county, but some counties have volunteer vet groups doing it for free. Otherwise can probably find ones doing it for 1000ish for strays. Kaohsiung vets shut it down (cause they’re greedy d bags) but I think pingtung still is running strong (with vets from kaohsiung).
Cats and dogs that have had this surgery should have clipped ears, if so, no need to bring them in. Waste of ketamine. Also note that TNR (trap, neuter, release) in Taiwan is actually illegal, in regards to the R.
