Health program

Healt is an important aspect when you are going to breed. Every responsible breeder has to learn the helath issues regarding the breed, and every breeder should also have this knowledge in mind when choosing the breeding cats.

Today it's impossible to test for every genetic disease - but we do test our cats when there is a reliable test available. When it comes to genetic diseases, especially HCM is a puzzle. Today, breeders have the opportunity to test for only one gene, MyBPC3, but even if this is negative you should be aware that this may not "absolve" the cat to never to be able to get HCM. We think regulary heart scans is the most important tool to contribute to reduce the HCM disease in the breed.

It's important to know that the Maine Coon breed is NOT sicker than other breeds, but it is still important to be aware of health issues when you choose to breed.

You can read more about the HCM disease here.

What kind of health program we use?

We do have an awareness of only use healthy cats in the breeding program, and beyond the health situation we notice in daily with the cats we also commit to do undertake the following:

Genetic tests:
HCM-MyPBC3
SMA
PK-Def

HCM-scan

HD-X-ray

All our test results will be published on our website when they are available.

Our regulary veterinarian is Aud Thelin at Mandal Smådyrklinikk.

We use UC Davis and MyCatDNA/Genoscoper as laboratory to DNA-tests. All DNA-tests are done by our regulary veterinarian.
We use OFA to perform the reading of X-rays of hips.
We use veterinarian Kirsti Bjørndal at Vennesla Dyreklinikk to HCM screening.

In addition it is important for us to be a cattery without the parasites giardia and tritrichomonas foetus. New cats has to be in quarantine until negative result is confirmed. We also do parasite tests on regulary basis.