Hi Melody,
The first thing is to make sure all of your negative cats are vaccinated and
boostered. The next thing to consider would be the age of your negative cats.
I have mixed positive and negative cats together for over 10 years now and
never had anyone 'catch' leukemia from one of my positives.
Non vaccinated cats and kittens are most susceptible to the virus.
Vaccinated, adult cats will rarely turn up positive from exposure. In fact
this has never happened that I know of where it could definitely be proven.
Many on the list allow their positives and negatives to live together, as I
do, under these circumstances, but some do keep their positives and negative
separated for various reasons.
If you choose to separate you really don't need to take many (if any)
precautions. I know when I used to volunteer at the shelter we would have to
'bleach' our shoes when we went from one area to the other due to uri's, parvo,
etc.... but that isn't necessary in the case of leukemia unless you have very
young, unvaccinated kittens in your home.
tonya
Forgotten Souls <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Good evening, all!
I'm new to this group, and came here in hopes I could get some
feedback/advice on multicat homes with pos and neg cats. Specifically, I
currently have neg cats, and am looking to assist a FeLeuk kitty. We have a
nice size home, and have a large spare room that can be easily converted for a
FeLeuk cat to be isolated from my neg guys. My major concerns really are what
types of precautions will need to be taken to protect the neg cats from
contracting it, and protecting the pos cat from any issues as well. I have been
doing some extensive reading, and aside from common sense things (dedicated
food dish, litterbox, etc, using bleach solutions to sanitize), what else
should I be aware of to protect the cats from eachother? Pardon my questions if
they come across as silly, I just want the best for these guys and don't want
to place any undue harm on anys cats, or commit to something I can't do. How
long does the virus actually survive in the environment? Is there anything I
should be doing when going between the FeLeuk room and my cats to prevent
transmission (change clothes, etc)? If any of you have a set up like this, can
you give me specifics on how you are making it work? How contagious and easily
does the virus actually transmit from an affected cat? I think this should
cover my barrage of questions for now. Any feedback on what to do is greatly
appreciated. Thanks, everyone!
Melody
