They took a chunk out of his ear!!!?

Question

My parents recently took in a stray cat who, for whatever reason, was abandoned by his previous owner. (I say this because he DEFINITELY acts like an indoor cat... nice coat, very loving, uses the litter box.) We put up signs everywhere and I posted "found cat" ads on the lost/found pet websites. Unfortunately, no one responded. After a couple of months, my mom was able to find him a good home with someone in our family. The person who decided to take the cat asked that we have him spayed first.

*SO* my mom found a place that takes in strays, fixes them for free, and then releases them again. Low on money, she asked if she could get him fixed and then have him released back to her and they agreed. When she got him back, he had a chunk missing from his ear!!! She said they do this to mark that the cat has already been there. Isn't the fact that he's SPAYED enough? It makes me sense to me! He's a beautiful cat and there was nothing wrong with his ears before. What do you guys think?

Well he's DEFINITELY a male... not a female. So if that's the explanation, they're a bunch of morons.

Answer 1

Many places that deal with strays do mark the ears in this way. This just helps people recognize at a distance that a cat has been fixed and cuts down on the number of times a cat is live trapped for a needless neutering trip. In this case, they should not have marked the ear (as it was being returned to your mother) and this was likely an error on their part.
I personally don't like this practice, but I can understand why they do it. I'm just glad there are places willing and able to take and neuter strays.

Answer 2

Many spay/neuter clinics routinely mark all cats' ears, male or female, once they have been altered. (Note: the term for males is 'neutered', females are 'spayed').
This is because if they are a trap-and-release program, meaning that altered cats are released back to the neighborhood that they were trapped from, they must be easily identifiable even from a distance. Sure, it is easy to tell if a male cat has been neutered, but only upon close inspection. A feral male cat rarely will let a person get close enough to check!
I understand that in this case, the cat was going to a home, not released. However, there may have been a miscommunication somewhere, and so this cat was marked just as all the others are.

Answer 3

I have heard of this. It is a simple way of knowing at a glance that the animal has been spayed, neutered, vaccinated for rabies......it is used for identification. If you are releasing ferral cats back into the environment, you don't want to waste time and energy on an animal that has already gone thru the system. If they new they were releasing the cat back to a potential owner, not sure why they did the ear notching. Other than, its the way they do it, and can't change. Good luck to the kitty in his new home.

Answer 4

As others have mentioned, discount animal clinics routinely tip the ears of all cats, female and males to identify that they have been spayed/neutered, so they wont be re-trapped in the future.
Personally I have taken 4 feral cats to an animal clinic for the Trap Neuter & Return reason. However, everytime I brought a feral cat in, I still had to fill out one page of information. On that page, the animal clinic lists all services that can be performed, one of which is ear notch, or how you put it,"a chunk out of his ear." This service is normally free, and since your mom was going for free services, she could have very well have checked the box for ear notch, not realizing what that was.
Rest Assured your cat will be fine, and the eartipping was performend while he was under anestesia, and will be perfectly healthy afterwards

Answer 5

According to you the place that does it does it for free--which indicates to me that they are in the TNR business, which is fixing cats up for free to be released back into the environment. So YES this is what they do--a TNR cat is ear tipped on the end of the left ear, marking them as TNR and that they have records of him. he's likely also been vaccinated and microchipped. Our TNR people here do that all as a matter of course, and it's all free.

Outdoor ferals, outdoor strays, and any cat brought in under that impression are ALL ear tipped. It's how they mark them and it's standard all across the USA. Don't get upset about it.

Answer 6

I wouldn't take another animal too them usually they tattoo a s for spayed on there stomachs.Maybe you should call the animal shelter there and tell them maybe they can investigate that place.That doesn't seem normal..I have 7 cats and they are all neutered and spayed and none of them have a piece of there ear gone.

Answer 7

Thats so they can tell when he is picked up later. They do this to females not males that are altered. It keeps them from having to put the animal under anesthisia and cut it open to find out the surgery was already done.
Its best that they do this.

Added:

If someone were out simply trapping to alter the ear would come in handy but if its a male they could easily tell if it were NEUTERED

Answer 8

thats so they can tell if the cat has been fixed. It saves the cat from alot of unnecessary stress. and yes they do clip ears on male AND female

Answer 9

I mean cant they do something else, how meaningless can it get! I am personaly shocked that they do that!
That is so terrible, cant they put like a brace on the leg or something, but i guess that is just how they do things.
I have nothing more to say to this.
>:(

Answer 10

I agree, theres no reason for that. Spaying should already hurt enough and i think its quite easy to see whether a cat is spayed..lol.