Bloodgroup incompatibility in cats |
Every breeder will know by now that breeding a litter is not always a happy experience. We all hope that the litter will turn into beautifull, healthy kittens. But unfortunately, this doesn’t allways happen. Quite often one of the kittens in a litter suddenly dies, without any obvious reason. We call this Fading Kitten Syndrome. But what most breeders don’t know, is that some of these kittens die on bloodgroup incompatibility, called Feline Neonatale Isoerythrolysi or FNI. As far as we know, cats have the following bloodgroups: |
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The hereditance of bloodgroups in cats follows the Medellian Genetics. But there is one difference compaired with the wellknown colour genetics. In bloudgroups we only write in Capitals. Notice also that bloodgroup A is dominant on bloodgroup B. So it’s a similar principle as the working of the agouti-gene, of the gene for dilution! Cats are wonderfull, mysterious creatures. We all are aware of that. The feline body is different (and more convenient) than the body of humans, dogs, apes and other mammals. The feline bloodplasma contains natural antibodies against an unknown bloodgroup. Less convenient bodies, for example our human bodies, develop these antibodies only when the first contact with the unknown bloodgroup has occurred for the first time. So what happens exactly when
we breed cats with two different bloodgroups? To show you the amount of cats we are talking about we made an example: In my database I have the pedigrees of 23000
Norwegian Forestcats. This is just a part of all Norwegian Forestcats that have been or
are still alive. But let’s take these 23000 as a start. When we take 5%, then we are
talking about 1150 Norwegian Forestcats that have bloodgroup B. |
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OK. So now we know that we have a big risk when our B-queen gets A-kittens. But how can we see that we have fading kittens, and what can we do about it? FNI can be determined by red- or redbrownish coloured urine, severe depression, jaundice, no need to drink. We can only have proof by bloodserological testing of both parents. Of course bloodtesting of a kitten will be difficult, because a kitten has hardly enough blood for itself. A tip: the plancenta! In it is enough blood to test the bloodgroup of the kitten. What can we do to safe the life of an FNI-kitten? Of course it’s better to cure than to heal. When we breed a B-queen with an A-stud, we can know that for sure we did the wrong combination, en that the kittens will suffer on bloodgroup incompatibility. So we have to make sure that the kittens do not drink with the mother for the first 48 till 72 hours, and therefore doesn’t get any colostrum. So that means bottle feeding! The worse thing about that is, that in the colostrum are many good antibodies, that the kitten does need. Fortunately we have artificial colostrum nowadays. As a breeder you have to keep in mind that bottlefeeding of kittens is not easy, and needs around the clock nursing. You have to bottlefeed the kittens every two hours, and you have to prevent the mother from having brestinfection because of the milk. There are also kittens that refuse to drink from a bottle, so that you have to use a sonde: not easy to do without any experience. Offcourse one should not forget the psychological problems, because the queen will be looking for her kittens, so that she will need extra attention too. You are absolutely wrong when you thinks it’s a piece of cake to take the kittens away from there mother for 24 hours. The only reason to do this is to save the kittens. That’s what we want you to know. It looks much easier than it really is. And how do we go from here..... It’s no solution to keep all
B-cats out of our breeding programs. Also keeping all the A-cats out of it isn’t the
solution. Having a certain bloodgroup is no disease! It’s just a genetic hereditance,
just like the carrying of the agouti gene, or the gene for dilution, or something like
that. The only problem is the COMBINATION of two different bloodgroups. A good solution
would probably be if we tested the bloodgroup of our cats, before we use them for
breeding. That way we can determine which combinations are definitely NOT recommended. Of
course we will never be fully certain about the bloodgroups of our cats, because cats with
bloodgroup A can carry the recessive bloodgroup B. But at least by testing we can prevent
the breeding of B-queens with A-studs, which results into fading kittens. There are different opinions about the breeding with B-cats. But after all every breeder has to decide for himself which way he or she wants to go. Some breeders are against breeding with B-cats, for different reasons. One of this reasons is, that the choise of bottlefeeding is against nature. Another reason is, that they do not see any use in breeding with B-cats. But when we take the statistical number, and we do take in mind that two cats with A-blood but being carrier of B-blood, can also have kittens with B-blood, then we’ll see that even out of a small amount of these cats can also be a large amount of B-cats. Because of this it’s necessary to have usefull information about what we are dealing with, so that none of these cats have to die because people don’t know about the B-blood. It doesn’t mather what choice you as a breeder make. Most important is the well-being of the cats, because whatever bloodgroup they have, these are all healthy, beautiful cats. Postscriptum: Ofcourse I did not write this article all by myself. Lots of research is already done by other breeders. People who work with other breeds, where the serologicat testing for bloodgroups is normal procedure. Breeders, who are discussing the bloodgroups of their cats all out in the open, and who all TOGETHER try to find the right combinations. Something that we, breeders of the Norwegian Forest Cat, also should be able to do Literature: De Bolle, Breeding Club
British Shorthair, the Netherlands |