Kitten congenital defects

Re: Kitten congenital defects

Yantha Smyth — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 19:30:21 GMT

Omphalocoele! I think maybe I never knew that term!! Thank you! The owner mentioned a few days later that there had been a blanket treatment of the household for tritrichomonas with ronidazole, so depending on timing I guess it is possible that this could represent a toxic insult at a particular time during gestation. I looked up in Plumb for more details on effects of ronidazole, and appears studies are limited, but that any effect that was seen tended to be reduced size rather than congenital defects. That is the only different thing she has been able to think of. I am now waiting to see if the remaining kitten develops the necrosis of extremities that the breeder reports has affected all other kittens borne of caesarians....

Re: Kitten congenital defects

Tom Ward — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 17:24:46 GMT

On the subject of congenital defects, I saw a shihtzu/ckcs cross today, with a deformed LF leg, RF normal. The upper limb was perfectly normal, but the radius and ulna suddenly stopped about 1/3 down their length. This was then followed by a floppy paw with very small poorly developed phalanges. There was a slight narrowing/scar at the level of the expected carpus - it looks like someone put a rubber band around the paw in utero - poss umbilical entrapment??? Difficult to know what to recommend to the breeder - is this heritable? I'm inclined to think not. Obviously no one can know for sure, but they're always intriguing when they get the detective mind whirring!!

Re: Kitten congenital defects

mariette asselbergs — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 16:43:43 GMT

When cats were still treated with anti-conceptive megestrol once a week, it happened sometimes that treatment got forgotten or vomited out. If a cat then got pregnant and owners still - unknowingly - treated it with megestrol during the pregnancy, kittens used to be born with deformities, I remember specifically cases of intestines spilling out etc.

Thought to just mention this. Nevcer know what breeders might use.....

Mariette

Re: Kitten congenital defects

Tim Charlesworth — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 14:00:26 GMT

Sorry to come in on this a bit late. I published a paper on the genetics of pectus excavatum deformity in Bengal kittens a couple of years ago. We had three breeders (all of which supplied us with full pedigrees of all unaffected/affected kittens within the study timeframe) and we spent a long time looking at inheritance patterns. There was a "high degree of common ancestry" (ie inbreeding) within the breed but even with the relatively large numbers we had we couldn't prove a genetic influence beyond any doubt and had to settle for a "likely multifactorial cause with both genetic and environmental influences". These things are furstratingly hard to prove as you would have to do multiple test matings of affected/carrier animals and this would be regarded as unethical. So with the Siamese cat - all you can say is that it may be heriditary but environmental influences (including in utero toxic insults as has already been said) could also have been to blame.

Re: Kitten congenital defects

Alex Allen — Fri, 07 Feb 2014 08:36:40 GMT

Omphalocele - herniation through umbilicus where the intestinal contents are still covered by visceral peritoneum

Gastroschisis - failure of the anterior body wall to close so viscera are free and not covered by any membrane

Interestingly neural tube defects and body wall defects can occur around the same stage of the pregnancy so whilst the odds would suggest a genetic component here (usually multifactorial) it is possible there was a significant toxic insult in the first trimester that caused these defects.

The history of other problems again favour the genetic cause....quit breeding sounds like good advice!