DAPHNE, Ala. — Animal overpopulation issues may have numbered days if the Alabama Veterinary Medical Foundation has say about it.

The foundation is offering a new license plate for pet lovers: a spay-neuter tag that will help pay to “fix” pets of lower-income families.

There’s one condition: 1,000 of the $50 license plates must be pre-ordered before Oct. 30 or the Alabama Legislature won’t approve the tags’ printing, according to a news release.

If the October deadline isn’t met, customers may request a refund or donate the $50 to help the foundation further spay and neuter efforts, according to Rick Derrick, public relations director for the Alabama Veterinary Medical Association.

If the requirement is met, recipients of Medicaid — a state and federal program that helps low-income people pay for health care — would be able to spay and neuter their pets at local veterinarians for little to no personal cost.

Dr. Albert Corte, a veterinarian at Highland Animal Hospital, said the program would benefit certain groups who can’t afford veterinary bills.

“Lower-income families like pets as well as anybody,” he said. “This would certainly be an asset to those families so that their children can have pets like other children.”

Many people can afford to feed their pets, but low-income residents may delay spaying and neutering when it interferes with groceries or bills, he said.

The numbers add up, according to Dr. Susan Benefield, an associate veterinarian at Lake Forest Animal Clinic. Spaying females is an expensive and intricate surgery; though the specific cost depends on the pet’s weight and whether females are in heat, dog owners can expect to pay between $250 to $350, and cat owners pay between $150 and $250 for spaying.

Neutering can be less expensive; dogs’ operations cost between $230 and $270 while cats’ procedures cost $100 to $175, she said.

Unaltered pets cause problems when they are left to constantly reproduce, Corte said.

“It’s an important situation to get some help here and at least manage the population,” he said. “The shelters are overloaded with unwanted pets.

“No one wants to put them to sleep but no municipality wants to pay to keep them either.”

If the problem isn’t corrected, cities will have “animals just running loose everywhere and becoming a nuisance to the whole surroundings,” he said.

The purpose of the license plates is to prevent such a problem, Derrick said.

“The effort is to have as many unwanted pets as possible to cut down on strays and euthanasia and to cut down on the population of unwanted pets,” he said. “We take these funds and help with costs to bring this population under control — over 135,000 euthanasias happen in Alabama per year and 3.7 million in the U.S.”

“Fixing” pets not only helps with overpopulation, it can “cut down on later problems,” Benefield said, referring to health risks that often affect pets’ reproductive organs.

Unaltered females face mammary and uterine infections, as well as cancers, she said.

“When they’re in heat, they have hormones circling in their systems,” she said of the course infections take throughout reproductive units.

Males have more visible setbacks. They often run away from home and fight other males over females; they also can develop internal diseases such as testicular cancer.

In both cases, such hormone-caused diseases can be avoided when the chemicals no longer circulate — because of the removal of all or parts of the reproductive system.

“It decreases markings and aggression in the male dogs. It helps them in the long run,” she said.

To pre-order the specialized license plate, visit www.revenue.alabama.gov/motorvehicle/mvforms.