I had noticed that one of the cats had a small slit on one of her ears which made me suspicious that she was already neutered, because although it was a different marker to the one Sybil the vet had told me the vets used to identify neutered cats, nevertheless it was still a marker on her ear. However, as I could not be absolutely sure about my suspicions I decided I would also try to take her in so Sybil could check for me.
During this time I was pleasantly surprised to have a visit from my black neutered male who had been done on a previous visit. He had had a bald patch on his fur and I had wanted to check it wasn’t mange so had managed to catch him and take him to the vet who checked him over and said it was just a skin allergy. She gave him some medication, but of course she said it would not be possible to give him any more treatment over a period of days or weeks as he was feral and would have to be released before then. At that time the vet also neutered him. I was very pleased to see that his skin and coat looked very good and he seemed to be healthy and surviving well. He had disappeared along with a large number of the other cats while we had been away last time and as we later found out they had all been dumped elsewhere by some people from the development. He had obviously found his way back to where he remembered he could get a good meal. I only saw him the one time on this trip but at least I knew he was doing OK.
After a few aborted attempts I finally managed to catch two more of the tabby female cats. One was the cat with the slit in its ear. We made the same rapid journey to the vet with two annoyed felines mewing in the back of the car and handed them over to the care of the surgery.
Later that day I got a call to say they were ready for collection. As I had suspected the cat with the slit n the ear had already been neutered, so no action had been taken except to sedate her for her check up. However, the other cat had been in the very early stages of pregnancy so that was ended when she was neutered. I had mixed feelings about that. On the one hand I felt that I had caused the death of four unborn kittens, but on the other hand I felt that I had prevented yet more unwanted starving cats from leading a very hard life on the streets.
Both cats were brought home and allowed to recover in the crates until the next morning when they were offered a meal before being set free. Although neither of them wanted to eat first thing it wasn’t long before they both started turning up at meal times again for their food.