Cone collar woes - post castration

[BotBotticelli]

Little boy kitten was castrated on Thursday and has had the cone of shame on ever since. He clearly hates it. Keeps going mad licking the inside of it in a desperate attempt to groom. And worse still, keeps smearing his poo all over it (and down between the overlapping bits of it, iyswim) every time he uses the litter tray 🤢🤢🤢

We are at the end of day 3 now (Saturday) and are due back at the vets on Monday (day 5 post op).

Has anyone taken their cat’s cone off, 3 ish days after castration?? His nuts area looks pretty swollen to me but I can’t really see an incision or any stitches...

Advice gratefully received!

Neither of mine had a cone after neutering
They also didn't have stitches as the incision is so tiny
I'd take it off tbh

I never had a follow up appointment either
Wasn't required unless there were any issues as there weren't any stitches to remove

Yes I took it off after a day as I couldn't bear it, she was so distressed. Her wound was fine.

We used one of these blow up donut rings from pets at home, our dog seemed to prefer this to the cone so hopefully works well for cats to:
www.petsathome.com/shop/en/pets/-p3438--1

I don't think male cats need any sort of cone as the incision they make is so small
Females have a bigger incision and stitches so may require a cone or bodysuit

Interesting that a few of you are saying a cone is not needed/your male cat didn’t have one after being castrated 🤷🏻‍♀️ Vet said we should keep it on until the post op check.

He is literally going demented licking the inside of it and trying to groom himself,

I can see the incision place on his balls - it does look like a very small cut and it’s close at the moment (despite him trying to use the end of the cone to scratch it )

*it’s closed at the moment

Funnily enough our vet was very anti us putting a cone on our cat - he licked like crazy but the wound still healed very quickly and neatly apparently. I didn’t believe the vet and was quite annoyed when he came out without a cone but she was really adamant that the cone was cruelly unnecessary in this case. Admittedly our cat had no stitches so different surgeries would be different.

Also our cats checkup was 3 days post castration and he was already deemed fine to go back to normal at that point.

Why not take it off and see how he gets on. As I said ours weren't given a cone. If its a standard neuter they make a tiny incision and squeeze the testicles out and don't stitch.

Basically what dementedpixie said. When ours came home (neutered /speyed same day) you would never have known and neither of them wore cones. Our boy cat also didn't need a check up after.

I'm with a specialist neuter clinic - we neuter thousands of cats a year. We never send them home with cones.

Amazon sell pet surgical recovery bodysuits, you could maybe try something like that?