16 Oct 2025
Cats Protection officials hope their work can reassure vets to promote early neutering of cats.
Allister Webb
Job Title
A leading welfare group has outlined plans for a new project it hopes will encourage more vets to promote the pre-pubertal neutering of cats to their clients.
The move came after Cats Protection’s latest examination of the UK feline population revealed increasing levels of owner concern about the procedure.
The charity’s annual Cats and Their Stats report estimated the proportion of neutered cats has fallen and only 20% undergo the procedure before they become reproductively active at four months old.
Officials are now planning to develop a new review of scientific evidence on the topic, which they hope will be published in the first half of 2026.
The report said: “This will hopefully help reassure and motivate vets to increasingly adopt pre-pubertal neutering of cats.”
Although the UK’s overall cat population is thought to have fallen to around 10.2 million, the proportion that is neutered is also estimated to have dropped from 85% last year to 82% now.
A further 15%, the equivalent of around 1.5 million animals, were listed as unneutered, with owners aged 18-34 and those who bought their pets from a specialist breeder considered least likely to have the procedure carried out.
Among participants whose cats were not neutered, a desire for them to have kittens was the most commonly cited reason (19%) ahead of cats not going outside (17%).
But 12% said they didn’t agree with the procedure, up from 9% in 2024, while 11% said they were worried about potential health risks, also up from 9% last year.
The report also raised concerns that declining neutering rates may also have a knock-on effect on microchipping levels, which it fears may now have “stalled”.
It estimated 74% of cats are currently microchipped, down 1% from last year, though levels were much higher in England where the procedure is a legal requirement.
The charity said vets should now encourage microchipping to take place “as early as possible”, either at vaccination or before the cat leaves its breeder.
