Hi,
I just posted about my FeLV positive kitten in response to your email. I'm sorry I somehow read your post as FeLV+ kitten.
At any rate, I am new here, but I can speak to the subject of FIV. I had a FIV+ cat named Buddy who lived to the age of 18. He was an adult cat who tested positive for FIV when I took him in, in 1992. A year later, after giving him a home, my husband and I took in two seven day old kittens--Tigger and Taylor--who tested positive for FIV.
We decided to keep them all together being that they all had FIV. They thrived, none of them had any major illnesses. Seven years later, we took in another kitty who was around 10 weeks old (Bob). He tested negative for FIV. At that time we restested every cat because the vet was curious about Tigger, Taylor and Buddy's FIV status. It turns out that Tigger
and Taylor were negative! The vet believes that they tested positive when they were newly born because of their mother's antibodies and not because they really were FIV+. Buddy still tested positive. At that point we decided to keep Bob since Tigger and Taylor had not gotten the disease from Buddy in seven years.
So, Tigger and Taylor lived seven years with FIV+ Buddy and didn't get FIV. In addition, Buddy lived another five years and Bob never got the disease from him either. They all shared the same food, water, and litter boxes. Buddy groomed the heck out of every kitten we had, but there were never any bites inflicted by Buddy. So in that way perhaps it's different than FeLV in that it's not transmitted through casual contact. I don't know much about FeLV.
I hope this helps as far as giving you some information from our experience with
FIV. If you have any other questions about our Buddy and other cats, please ask.
Gina
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I have been researching the net for information on FIV in kittens and hope to get more info here. My daughter came home two weeks ago with a little freal kitten appr. 5 weeks old. We already hav a 3 year old cat and had not planned on another cat, but ofcourse everybody in the family fell in love with this little thing. Yesterday we were told she tested positive for FIV, which realy upset everybody, but we have decided to keep her and deal with things as they come. Now I read that when a little kitten tests positive, you need to keep testing it until at least 6 month of age because it might be mothers anti-bodies, passed through mothers milk that might make the test come back positive. Is there anybody in this forum that indeed had that happen, meaning that at first the test came back positive but later negative? I know we are grasping at straws, but hope helps. We are also trying to decide whether to keep the two cats separate for ever or introduce them anyhow, I will talk to the vet to have the older one tested too now and if that comes back negative, to have him vacinated, but wonder whether that would be sufficient protection. Any advise??
No heaven wil not ever Heaven be Unless my cats are there to welcome me.--epitaph in a pet cemetery
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