How's much supervision will my two male cats need after neutering?

Question

I've recently realised that I need to rearrange my two male cats neutering.

The best time would be during some holiday I already have booked off from work, but shortly after that (1-2 days) my wife and I are going away for three days with only my brother-in-law to look after them.

My BIL has not got a lot of cat experience, but has cat sat for us before.

I've read that cats will be groggy and drowsy after the surgery (which is fine) but that it will take ~2 weeks for the wounds to heal. Some websites ¹² day the cats need to be supervised during this time so that they don't lick it play fight and open the wounds.

Our boys do scrap a little while we're around (though very little) but we don't know what they get up to when we're out. Nothing violent at all.

They're both around 6 months of age, and male. We can supervise them the day is the surgery and some of the day after for certain.

How's much supervision will they most likely need, and what's the worst case scenario?

Answer 1

If you put cones on their heads you might be able to ease the supervision burden on your bil as far as licking goes. If you can keep them in separate rooms you can also take play fighting out of the picture, although as you suspect the first few days they won't be doing much of anything at all. Then supervision becomes simply a matter of helping them keep deal with the cone, e.g. being nice to them, helping them eat, cleaning their face, making sure litter isn't stuck near the wounds (depending on the kind of litter you use you might consider shredding up some newspaper and layering it on top of you notice it's irritating them), that kind of stuff, but it's no longer necessary to constantly watch them or be concerned.

The risk of injury or opening the wounds is real. Doing these two things will change the risk from injury to merely discomfort and unhappiness, which is much more manageable short and long term.

Ask your vet about the cones and see if you can prepare a separate room for at least one, with food water and litter available.