[Felvtalk] Leuk pos kittens

Amy awilkins23 at yahoo.com
Fri May 9 09:20:31 CDT 2014


I posted recently about 5 leuk positive kittens that were going to be euthanized if I couldn't find a home.  I have found a sanctuary to take after we retest at 12 weeks but have some questions.  Here is the history.  One pregnant mom (Mimi) and one mom with 4 kittens were taken from the same home.  They were fostered together until testing.  The pregnant mom (Mimi) had 2 kittens.  One died at 2 days old and the other was ok.  When they tested the cats, the mother of the 4  kittens came up positive for leukemia.  The mother of the 2 kittens came up negative.  All 5 kittens tested positive.  The rescue pulled the two moms out and isolated them but kept the 5 kittens together.  The leuk positive mom was sent to a sanctuary and the leuk negative mom (Mimi) is fine and is just waiting retesting before being adopted out.  The kicker is the sanctuary just called and said the positive mom has retested negative on the snap.  They are sending the
 blood out for an IFA test.  My question is how does that happen?  Did the snap test detect exposure but the mom was able to fight off the virus?  We will be retesting the kittens at 12 weeks but the rescue has asked whether they should do snap tests or IFA tests?  It would make sense to start with the snap tests first, right?  Then do IFA on the ones that come up positive to confirm before sending to a sanctuary?

What are the odds that any of these 5 kittens will come up negative?  Have people seen kittens that test positive actually test negative later?  I've heard it can happen but I've talked to many sanctuaries and vets and they say they have never seen it happen with kittens.  They said they have seen litters where test some pos and some neg but never seen a positive kitten turn negative.  Hoping that they all come up negative but I know that isn't likely.  That said, they were tested very young and my vet said they don't normally test until 12 weeks.  Hoping they were tested right after exposure and that some are able to fight it off.

Amy
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