Neutering is a veterinary surgeon’s bread and butter, but people are often pleasantly surprised by the pricing of neutering surgeries. This is particularly with such a spotlight on veterinary pricing in the media, with many people having a pre- conceived estimate of what these kinds of surgeries will cost, often thinking it will be in the high hundreds, even up to the thousand mark. However, neutering is a lot cheaper…
Actual costs
Neutering mainly varies between the £100-400 mark for neutering dogs (the average for castrating even a large breed dog is about £270); and between £40-100 to neuter a cat (compare the market.com). The actual price of these will vary depending on what size of dog or cat you have, whether they require a spay (for a female) or castration (for a male) as well as varying based on location in the UK. There are several reasons why vets keep routine surgeries, such as neutering, at a relatively low price. There are both business and ethical reasons for this, let’s take a look…
Business
Principles of competitive pricing and loss leaders play a part in motivating vet practices to keep neutering surgeries low. Often when choosing a veterinary practice, people will compare neutering costs, as that is often something they will be planning on using. People are less likely to join a veterinary practice if they don’t offer a competitive rate for neutering and are therefore a lost business opportunity.
Loss leaders is the principle of offering a service that is non- profitable to build customer loyalty, so although either no profit or little profit is made from a neutering surgery, it does mean that clients are more likely to use their service in the future for other services that will turn a profit. These principles help to build a loyal client base and increase revenue.
Service provision
As vets, we provide encouragement for preventative health treatments, such as vaccinations, flea and worming treatments and neutering surgeries. Neutering counts as preventative health care as it can help to prevent certain cancers and life-threatening infections in the case of females. It also prevents unwanted pregnancies which can be a health risk to a female dog or cat. To encourage neutering as a preventative health treatment, vets try to make neutering fees low and accessible to encourage responsible pet ownership.
Routine surgery
Although arguably spaying a female dog can be a challenging surgery, most neutering surgeries are routine and straightforward. Depending on the level of experience of the surgeon, dog castrates can take between 10 and 40 minutes, and bitch spays can take anywhere between 20 and 90 minutes. Almost all qualified vets can do these surgeries and they are done daily. Because of this and that further qualifications or training are not required, the cost is kept lower.
As they are routine to most surgeons, they also tend to be done faster than other surgeries; less time incurs lower costs. As neutering is an elective surgery and the patient is usually healthy, the anaesthetic is often straightforward and does not always require things like intravenous fluids or blood work prior to surgery, again lowering the cost compared to a complex anaesthetic on a sick patient.
Population control
An important ethical part of veterinary is population control to reduce the numbers of stray and unwanted animals. The main way to prevent this, particularly among the stray populations, is to neuter. Veterinary practices will undertake low price neutering, particularly for charities, to provide a service to reduce stray animals and provide a service to these animals.
It is worth comparing prices of neutering when choosing a veterinary practice. But it is also important to consider other factors, such as whether that practice provides an out of hours service, if they have any specialists working there, or if they have any further practice qualifications, like being cat friendly.
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