[Felvtalk] help /advice - testing age of kittens

[Lorrie]

Hi Anna,  I rescue and have many cats. Testing them at 3 or 4 months
old is usually a good time to see if they are positive or negative. 
I have lost many positive kittens who were born with the virus which
they contracted from their mother. However some can throw off the
virus. If your kitten who is approximately 4 months old had a
positive mother he could still be positive, but he may have an strong
immune system and be fine. With younger kittens I always test twice
once at about 8 weeks and again at around 4 months to be sure of the
status.  Please let us know how this kitten is?  Hopefully he will
test negative.

Lorrie 

On 01-25, Anna Summers wrote:

> Hi , I live in spain in a very rural are  & last year I lost 2 cats
> who were felv + , they were not in contacted with my house cats but
> one of them ( 9yrs old ) is latent positive DNA with a low reading
> of the virus , I did a quantative pcr , he was negative in the
> elisa test and I was told that he is not contagious . my other 2
> cats are vacinated against fel. my question ???..

> As I see yourselves are up to date with all the latest things  -
> someone left a kitten on my wall just before christmas - he is now
> been in ??? quarantine??? for 5 weeks , he is about 4 months old , I
> need to test him but when is the right time to test kittens as I
> have read many article re: the anitbodies of the mother so a kitten
> can test false positive. I am keen to know , as he is on his own
> and hopefully he will be negative so I then can vaccinate him as I
> am also told that, are they any special test to do this , I dont
> want to do the basic snap test and I am happy to do the elisa and a
> pcr test. Hope you can help me , here in the area a live in which
> is very rural ,lots of ferral cat the vets just give up on felv + ,
> so I dont wont to ask my vet until I am up to date with all the
> information. thank you anna
>  
> _______________________________________________