Should I get my kitten tested for HCM? 50% chance she has one gene

Hi all,


I am just after your advice on this one- I have a gorgeous new Maine Coon kitten and i am unsure whether I should get her tested for HCM..

The sire was negative for the gene but her mum was positive for one of the genes- so technically she will have passed on the gene to 50% of her offspring.

We lost our first maine coon this year at 15 months to a severe infection, cause unknown and were devastated. I know really I should have only got our second baby from negative- negative lines but she chose us and I had no option really!!

Does anyone have any experience of this and did they get their kitten tested? Did you make the right decision or did you live to regret it?


Any help welcome xxx

I have had three of my cats tested just as a matter of interest & will get the other three done too,again only out of interest because they are all pets not for breeding.
As you have lost a MC so young & this is obviously already playing on your mind I would say you are better going for it if not you are going to spend all your time looking at babe & worrying anyway,as you say 50/50 chance it will be negative but even if it is heterozygous it still has less chance of HCM anyway than if it was homozygous,also remember that at any time they could come up with yet another gene that could narrow things down even more.
If it is the "worst"then have words with your vet & see what he advices to help you enjoy your babe, there are a lot of good breeders who have put hetero to negatives but in turn will then use negative to negative so hopefully a bit further down the way all good breeders will only be using negative to negative but if they had all taken out their heterozygous girls at the start then the genetic breeding pool would have slumped so much that there would have been more problems of other kinds.
Difficult I know but whatever you decide will be right for you , have fun with your babe & post some photos for us to drool over please & keep us up to speed with what you decide....x

Hiya, Thank you for your view point.. my problem is that even if I did get her tested, and she was hetero for HCM that doesnt mean that she would definately develop HCM anyway does it? So it would be like me knowing that there is a ticking bomb but not knowing when-or if- it will go off. Maybe I would be better off just enjoying her and then if the worst happened deal with it then However I do not know enough about HCM- its onset, symptoms, progression and treatment to make that call. I am going to have to do a fair amount of research and talk to other MC owners before i decide.

Out of curiosity, how much do the tests cost? Tinkerbell ran up a near £5k bill seeking treatment and tbh its financially crippled me for a long while yet. I shall let you know for sure xx

Ok, update: I have ordered four swabs from Langfords which should come in the post next week and then I can collect Merry's cheek cells and send them back to be tested for the known HCM gene. The swabs are free and the test really reasonable, not the hundreds of pounds I had feared as I cant afford that. So I will get samples and then i am leaning towards sending them off- It would be unbeliveable if she was negative, wow. If hetero i would be in such a mixture of emotions and am worried incase I distance myself from her in order to cope if she went on to developing it :( xx

Thats where I had mine done....
If she is heterozygous she is still in the minority of those that will go onto develop HCM,what is there to say another gene won't be found out there that will also need to be bred out to help with reducing the HCM risk,it is still not saying that a negative will not go on to develop HCM all these things are doing is helping to promote the best breeding lines possible to reduce the possibility,if everything in life could be proven to be 100% guarantee against anything wouldn't it be grand for both for us & our little angels,but....
If you are going to keep thinking of the negatives you will already be distancing yourself "just in case" but I am sure you are not & will continue to luv her more each day,I thought I would be able to "distance"myself from our little flat chested girl that we thought we were taking on to give her a super family life for however short a period it was but by the time we had driven four hours home I knew it would break my heart if she died that night,well here we are several years later & guess who is still with us,no way are you not going to be able to send the swab off now you have gone that far,be strong,sit down when that envelope comes through the door {remember I had three to look at}take a deep breath & we will all be here on the end of the forum for you,in fact in the not too distant future I will be joining you as I am having my other three done,but whatever the outcome I will continue to love them just as much & so will you,it might never happen & chances are it won't...xxx

Thank you so much!! :shy:

You are right, theres no way I could distance myself.. I thought today if it came back positive what would I do- would I go back to the breeder and maybe see if she would home her AND THERES NO FLIPPING WAY!!! I am completely and utterly obsessed with this little girl and head over heels in love already- I think she's only been here for 10 days and my heart belongs to her entirely- it did from the first viewing! I really do need to get some pics on here as she is gorgeous, but my partner has gone to Wales walking with a friend all weekend and taken the camera :pissed: Grrrr. Means Im cat sitting our angel though all to myself :rofl:

The swabs actually came today! Wasnt expecting them so quick.. I ordered 4 just incase lol. Looking through the forms it appears that you need a vet stamp, so we can only send the swab off when Merry has been to our vets. I planned to do this anyway in a couple of weeks, to get another general health check and have her weighed. The form also asks for her microchip number, but the breeder didnt get her chipped and so we need to do that too..

Incidentally, i emailed the breeder yesterday asking whether she had had any of the litter tested for hcm, as there was a 50:50 chance they had inherited the gene from the mating; I asked as there were two girls in the litter, both brown tabby and the breeder wanted to keep one of them.. when i asked what had made her decide on the other kitten she said the shade of brown, but if I were her i would have got them tested and then let the results decide me.. The dam of the litter is the one who is hetero but she is 6/7 years old and hasnt shown any heart problems yet touch wood. I havent heard back from the breeder yet which is a bit unusual but if she knows something I dont I would rather she say.. TBH I will prob get Merry tested anyway, I trust Langfords implicitly. Our first MC Tinkerbell Twinkletoes was under their care for her last couple of days and although I did not drop her off at the hospital my partner did and he was pretty impressed. It is very hard to impress him so I was reassured that he was so confident in their abilities.

Merry is due another worming/flea treatment at 14 weeks- her third i do believe- and then we shall get her chipped and tested.

I shall update here! Thank you JC
Lolly xx

Unless it has changed you can do a swab & send it off yourself it only needs to go through the vets if you need an official signature on it say if you are a breeder or its a kitten going for breeding & the new owners would want it all done officially. You are right about it seeming a bit strange that the breeder perhaps didn't have the babes tested before keeping one for breeding as now her aim should be to do it with only negative breeding stock,also strange that she hasn't got back to you,perhaps you are treading a bit too close for comfort but you will know for yourself soon & Merry already seems to be doing what MC's are good at pulling those heart strings tight.....
Will look forward to the camera's return & some photos plus all the updates...x