Thread: What health-test do you do?

I test for FIV/FeLV and make sure that any breeding cats I have are from lines that are free and tested for HCM.

I also make sure my lines are tested and free from HD/PL

I personally wouldn't breed from a cat that was heterozygous for the HCM gene but some breeders will mate to a cat that is clear in the hope of producing a clear testing kitten that can then carry on the lines without the HCM. I wouldn't do that as you are putting the kittens at risk of carrying at least one of the genes and I don't feel that enough testing has been done unfortunately.

A friend of mine has just had her breeding queen tested positive for HCM, and it is a very severe case, and at least one of her kittens has come back with a severe heart murmur.

Just had to add, have been on your HP and your cats are just stunning - your tortie smoke with white girls is absolutely beautiful! Look forward to seeing your next litter of kittens

I am not a breeder, but I will put up a couple of links to the breeder of two of our four MCs as an example of one of the most thorough of US MC breeders. She does multiple tests on her breeding cats, including DNA testing for HCM (MyBpc3) and SMA, HD, plus has HCM exams performed yearly by certified vet. cardiologists. She has copies of much of this info on her website with the cats and we got copies of test results with the kittens. Here are links to the pedigree and health links for two of her females (note test links on the pages):
Pedigree of RW, SGC Witchcraft Flash Fire of Chemicoons
Pedigree for OD DGC Chemicoons Madame Marie Curie

I believe the majority of serious US MC breeders at least claim to be doing HCM genetic testing. Some claim to be doing cardiology screenings as well, although since there are so few vet cardiologists outside of major cities, these claims appear questionable. Based on our own personal experience with two MCs, I would recommend that anyone considering an echocardiogram only bother having it done by a certified vet cardiologist. Last year one of our MCs was mistakenly diagnosed as having "severe HCM" by a radiology vet at a specialty group no less. Luckily the above breeder got cat an emergency appt. with cardiologist that showed the other vet had misinterpreted an uncommon but benign heart variation. So frankly, you may be wasting your money having a non-cardiologist do echos on your cats.

There are also some US breeders that believe that the HCM concern is overblown, and they continue to breed known heterozygous cats with desirable characteristics, in a line where they believe the health prognosis is good despite potential hetero status.

Thanks a lot, Laïka has really nice coloring, but she is a master thief just a few minutes ago she did steal my mobile phone, she took it in her mouth and tried to run of with it

Well i agree with you at some point, but if we select to hard we would get problems with the gene pool it's already quite narrow. So the genetics and veterinarians helping with the health program recommended that HCM/HCM is not going into breeding at all, N/HCM can have a litter and you go on with a N/N kitten. I ofcourse prefer to breed on N/N cats it's much better and much easier

I do have a female now that is N/HCM, i hope she will give me a N/N female to move on with she will be neutered after this litter anyway. She is tested free with ultrasound at 3 years of age before her first litter and at 5 years of age and i plan to test her again at 8 years of age.

I would love us to find any other gene so that we would be free from the scanning. I know they believe it's about 12 genes or something around that amount. I know we have a genetics here in Sweden that right now are collecting material for a study.
But it's not easy he would need 50 cats diagnosed with HCM not related and 50 cats tested at as high age as possible also not related. Well not easy

But i think we work hard on Maine Coon, a lot harder then many other breeds and we will fight this in time.

Originally Posted by WoodsideMaineCoons

I test for FIV/FeLV and make sure that any breeding cats I have are from lines that are free and tested for HCM.

I also make sure my lines are tested and free from HD/PL

I personally wouldn't breed from a cat that was heterozygous for the HCM gene but some breeders will mate to a cat that is clear in the hope of producing a clear testing kitten that can then carry on the lines without the HCM. I wouldn't do that as you are putting the kittens at risk of carrying at least one of the genes and I don't feel that enough testing has been done unfortunately.

A friend of mine has just had her breeding queen tested positive for HCM, and it is a very severe case, and at least one of her kittens has come back with a severe heart murmur.

Just had to add, have been on your HP and your cats are just stunning - your tortie smoke with white girls is absolutely beautiful! Look forward to seeing your next litter of kittens

Thats really good it's like we do it here in Sweden though here most people test through the health program and that means that the veterinarian (ofcourse certified) sends in a copy of the test result to the database, that way it can't be any selected result.

An example on a cat of mine:
Dagdrivarn Prince Mozez: Health

I believe that if you test DNA only it's of no good at all, we got at least 12 genes and the one found is only one of them. It's really, really important to keep scanning our MCs.

Well the last thing yout type that some think all HCM and HD are nothing to be concern about unfortunately i think this is common in any country. There will always be the ones that maybe just don't understand or don't care or are misled or whatever.

I don't believe that it's a problem taking one litter or if you must two of a N/HCM female, as long as you do select only N/N for breeding and you do not go on breeding on her as you would with an N/N cat. I have a N/HCM female she have got a litter with a N/N male, she got 5 males, 4 of them was N/N and one unknown. She is now 5 years old and is tested negative with ultrasound at 3 and 5 years of age. She will be neutered after this litter, if i dont get a negative female well then it how it suppose to be I will not have another litter of her. Here in Sweden almost all breeders test with ultrasound at 1,2,3 and 5 through the healht program ie a certified cardiologist. And also do the DNA-test and a lot of breeders do take one litter of a N/HCM female. But we do not trust on the DNA only.

This is really interesting

Originally Posted by NCarver

I am not a breeder, but I will put up a couple of links to the breeder of two of our four MCs as an example of one of the most thorough of US MC breeders. She does multiple tests on her breeding cats, including DNA testing for HCM (MyBpc3) and SMA, HD, plus has HCM exams performed yearly by certified vet. cardiologists. She has copies of much of this info on her website with the cats and we got copies of test results with the kittens. Here are links to the pedigree and health links for two of her females (note test links on the pages):
Pedigree of RW, SGC Witchcraft Flash Fire of Chemicoons
Pedigree for OD DGC Chemicoons Madame Marie Curie

I believe the majority of serious US MC breeders at least claim to be doing HCM genetic testing. Some claim to be doing cardiology screenings as well, although since there are so few vet cardiologists outside of major cities, these claims appear questionable. Based on our own personal experience with two MCs, I would recommend that anyone considering an echocardiogram only bother having it done by a certified vet cardiologist. Last year one of our MCs was mistakenly diagnosed as having "severe HCM" by a radiology vet at a specialty group no less. Luckily the above breeder got cat an emergency appt. with cardiologist that showed the other vet had misinterpreted an uncommon but benign heart variation. So frankly, you may be wasting your money having a non-cardiologist do echos on your cats.

There are also some US breeders that believe that the HCM concern is overblown, and they continue to breed known heterozygous cats with desirable characteristics, in a line where they believe the health prognosis is good despite potential hetero status.

Originally Posted by dagdrivarn

Thats really good it's like we do it here in Sweden though here most people test through the health program and that means that the veterinarian (ofcourse certified) sends in a copy of the test result to the database, that way it can't be any selected result.

An example on a cat of mine:
Dagdrivarn Prince Mozez: Health

I knew about PawPeds pedigree DB but not the health programs. Your info is very complete and impressive! It is really a problem in the US to have cats tested by a cardiologist vet specialist. There just are not that many of them. We now have one in St Louis, the nearest big city (2 hours away), but prior to that the nearest was 4+ hours away. Some areas do not have any even that close.

Very interested to hear about your hetero female. I started another thread asking if anyone else had any DNA positive cats. We have one female hetero who will be 5 this year and was echoed last year for the first time (negative). Plan is to have her redone every couple of years. The breeder has a hetero male that I think was around 8 last year (we took our girl at the same time). His heart did show some HCM changes. We went through HCM with a MC mix stray that we took in 6 years ago, so know about it very well.

Originally Posted by NCarver

I knew about PawPeds pedigree DB but not the health programs. Your info is very complete and impressive! It is really a problem in the US to have cats tested by a cardiologist vet specialist. There just are not that many of them. We now have one in St Louis, the nearest big city (2 hours away), but prior to that the nearest was 4+ hours away. Some areas do not have any even that close.

Very interested to hear about your hetero female. I started another thread asking if anyone else had any DNA positive cats. We have one female hetero who will be 5 this year and was echoed last year for the first time (negative). Plan is to have her redone every couple of years. The breeder has a hetero male that I think was around 8 last year (we took our girl at the same time). His heart did show some HCM changes. We went through HCM with a MC mix stray that we took in 6 years ago, so know about it very well.

Pawpeds is much more then just a pedigree db
Today it's also a education-center to minimize people going into breeding without enough knowledge and also for ordinary pet owners that want to be more educated.

In the menu you have The PawAcademy and there are Internet Courses and a lot of Articles to read or you can choose Health Programs and read about different health programs for all kind of breeds. Or you can choose Breed Specific and learn more about your breed and the history

Maya's fifth birthday was in august and she was OK on ultrasound in December (Maya is the one on my avatar btw)

It's really hard when there are no cardiologist with adequate education avalible, i can se on the list for the health program that there is only two veterinarians in UK accepted by the health program:
PawPeds
But at least it's two, in Sweden we are really spoiled we have accepted veterinarians on twelve locations.

I have also meet HCM in close up, not in my own cats but in one of my friends cats,
he died from HCM just a few month after being cleared by one of our best veterinarians in this subject a man who's doing research in HCM so there is no question about a bad screening. We have learned that in unusual cases a cat can develope HCM in a short period of time probably caused by virus. This is also very interesting.

Yes if someone wonders i am really interested in this

I test for FIV - FeLV PL, HD and PKD and make sure that all of my breeding cats( I have more than coonies) are echo tested clear from HCM

My own girls where gene tested when they where young, to double check for the mutation, as it was in some of the Dutch lines way back.. and opinions seem to change as you go along.

Then they where echo tested. Mimi has been gene tested, with no mutation.. we shall have to wait and see for Corrigan.