Cat collars yes or no?

[LiveLifeToTheFull2]

Do you have collars on your cats?
Yes or no?
I'm undecided whether to put them on our 6 month old kittens before we let them outside 🥴
Pros - People can recognise that they have a home and are loved
Cons - Worried about them getting hooked up

I would get the easy quick release ones if I was to go for collars but I'm not actually sure if they work and are indeed safe because they are quick release?

Every time ours has had a quick release they don't release quick enough and he's had the most awful injuries from fighting.

I beg to differ there. One of my plump, glossy panthers was being an arse and refusing to come in one night, preferring to hang round the bins outside my front door. The best way to deal with that is to shut the door and open up again about 10 mins later.

I opened the door 10 minutes later to find one of my neighbours waving a slice of cheese at her in an effort to get her to come to him. So here I am, a large woman in a black cat nightshirt, looking well pissed off. He stammered out an explanation: she is pretty, it's quite late (10pm), she's friendly and she's farting about round the bins. Nope, she's mine, she's just refusing to come in. I think that if he could have self combusted with embarrassment he would.

If I hadn't opened the door when I did, he would have gone off with her. Fortunately, he lives almost opposite, so I would probably have seen her at some point. She's also chipped, so that would have come to light if he had taken her to the vet.

But people do try to 'help' the Cat Distribution System without thinking.

No, I think it’s risky, and unnecessary, to put a collar on a cat.

Cat tax depicting extreme glossiness

No. He was wearing a collar when he came to us, but when we took him to the vets to be chipped and ‘done’, the vet announced he didn’t approve of collars, removed it and threw it away, so that was us told!

I don't like them. None of my cat have ever had them. If you have your cats microchipped - and everyone should - they don't need collars.

Our rescue cat has a long-term collar injury wound that still won't heal properly after several years. Happened shortly before we got him, and it has cost us a fortune in vet bills. If he hadn't been found in time he would have died.

So no. No collars.

We probably got through about 100 collars with our 4 before we got the message. They usually got them off within a day.

Just microchip them.

We went through 5 in a week and gave up.

We used to think that, but it doesn't work.

No. Risk of collar injury or being trapped is way too high.

Absolutely not, Ive seen the damage collars can do after rescuing a cat with horrific injuries. Those of you fitting collars more loosely so your cat can escape are increasing the risk of them getting a paw through and sustaining the injuries I witnessed.

I don't. I just worry it may be uncomfortable, rub his skin, he could get caught in a tree or in a fight it could be used to pull or yank him.
I don't see the reason, other than some put a bell as they don't want him killing birds. Which probably doesn't help.
Mine scream and self harm when the cone collar goes on at the vets, and they hated the flea collar.

Our cats will wear "do not feed" collars when they go out.
We have some beautiful and very friendly cats. I don't want people trying to rehome them. They're all chipped but I feel like a collar saying do not feed stops people from pretending it could be a stray or something.

No.

1. It would get caught as she hurtles through the bushes into next door's garden, so dangerous.
2. She would never keep it on. She managed to wriggle out of a cone of shame and the "escape proof" kitten harness was on for two minutes flat.

Paddington has one while his microchip is being changed to my details. He looks very smart.

DCat has a high-viz reflective collar with my phone number on it. I've had a couple of calls to say that the collar has been found minus the cat, so clearly the breakaway mechanism works.

I live near a main road and people don't have chip readers but they do have eyes. The reflectiveness could be the difference between a driver seeing him in time to stop or not and the phone number could be the difference between the driver who doesn't stop in time phoning me or not so that I can collect his body.

This is similar to the injuries my cat had, only he almost amputated his leg. Also worth bearing in mind that if a kitten becomes lost while wearing a collar it risks strangulation as it grows.

We don't but our neighbour has asked us to get one with a bell to stop her bird hunting. She has only ever brought home one bird. We think she might have just found it dead and tried to take credit, as there wasn't a feather out of place.

But no to the collar - trying to administer flea spot-on treatment is hard enough, we wouldn't stand a chance with a collar!

Cat one did. It was a flea collar in the days before microchips and good and effective stuff like advocate. No problems for 17 years. She was a sweet, unadventurous thing. I don't think I even saw her jump on the fence.

Cat two was chipped and had advocate but I put a collar on him. As soon as he started going out two collars were gone in quick succession. I stopped. He was a loving, fearless bruiser.

Cats three and four. Former rescues, abandoned at 3/4 weeks, one was slightly feral. They came at 7 months. There was no chance they'd have let me put a collar on even if I'd wanted to. Both chipped. Both climbers.

Microchip flaps are brilliant.

Ours doesn't have a collar. I really don't see the point in them.

No.

I once had a DCat who lived to the ripe old age of 23. King of the road until his last day. For years he was a scraggy old man - looked dreadful but ate like a horse. I put a collar on him with my number on when people started kidnapping him convinced that he was a starving stray. Got up to eight phone calls a day (we're a cat loving people really). One woman, who wasn't convinced by DD telling her how old DCat was, called the RSPCA out on me. Naturally when they came my two other cats, who were a few years younger and looked normal size, were nowhere to be seen 😑.

Microchip flaps are brilliant.

That's what we thought, except ours restricts entry, but not exit, and one of the local cats seems to be able to hook the flap towards himself (so direction of exit) to facilitate access to our cat’s food! Don’t know if you can get them with two way restrictions?

My cats wear collars to go out due to having tractives. I know collars are risky but I'm also concerned re them going out without the trackers. Surprised this isn't a factor for others

For me, the risk of the collar outweighs any potential benefit from the tracker.