Merlin, don't forget with feral/hard strays there can be more than one father
for a litter. It is possible that the positive kitten's father was positive
and the father for the other kitten was negative.
Yes the kittens should be retested in 4 months in case they picked up the virus
from the positive adult kitty. Personally I'd start vaccinating the negatives
now. They will need a booster shot 3-4 weeks after the initial shot.
You have a well thought out plan. Can your trapping partner deal with it?
Sharyl
--- On Thu, 10/22/09, mary (merlin) marshall <merlinmarsh...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> From: mary (merlin) marshall <merlinmarsh...@yahoo.com>
> Subject: [Felvtalk] formulate a game plan for retest and mix positives and
> negatives
> To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org
> Date: Thursday, October 22, 2009, 3:30 PM
> Hi MaryChristine,
>
> I forwarded your link in your later email to my friend.
>
> Your email helped me formulate a plan for my friend.
>
> First, the situation:
> 3 adult cats living together for about 1.5 years.
> 1 adult FIV cat living with the group for about a year.
> Monday found out 1 of the 3 is FeLV positive, the rest
> negative, including the FIV cat.
> 2 kittens, about 5 or 6 months old, exposed to FeLV for
> about 3 months, one tests negative, one tests positive
> now. Their mother was tested negative and it is
> presumed they were originally negative.
> 1 kitten, about 3 months old, exposed to FeLV for about 3-4
> weeks, tests negative now. This kitten's mother was
> tested last week and is negative. She was not part of
> the household or exposed to the household cats.
>
> The Plan
> Caveat: The only way to make sure a cat doesn't get
> leukemia is to keep it away from leukemia cats.
>
> The 4 adult cats have all been together for at least a year
> and only one has leukemia. Presumably, if the rest were
> going to get it, they probably already would have it.
> Retesting them in 3 or 4 months probably won't make a
> difference since they have had at least a year of
> exposure. Unless they should get the IFA test now to
> confirm negative status? Vaccinate the negatives (give
> this how much time to work?), then let the adults mix - the
> possibility of the rest getting leukemia is very low.
> Vaccinate (and test?) the negatives annually.
>
> The kittens are more difficult. None have been
> exposed for 4 months. One might really be positive, or
> maybe this is false positive. The other 2 are negative
> at this time, all according to ELISA.
>
> The positive kitten has only been exposed for about 90
> days. Should she get the IFA test now, or wait another
> month because maybe the virus has not had time to
> incubate? In any case, she should be isolated from the
> negatives and the adult positive.
>
> All 3 of the kittens should be retested, at least with
> ELSA, in 4 months? Should the negative ones start
> vaccinations now, or wait until after the second test?
> Once the kittens who are negative at the 2nd test are
> vaccinated, they be allowed to mix with the adults, again
> keeping in mind the only sure way to prevent infection is to
> keep positives and negatives separate.
>
> Does this plan sound reasonable, and reasonably safe for
> the household cats?
>
> Merlin
>
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