Thread: What health-test do you do?

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.