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Old June 24th 04, 02:43 AM
Linda Terrell
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On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 17:51:56 UTC, "Wendy"
wrote:

Doing a web search I come up with everything from they can be tested at any
time to it's not accurate till 6 mos. At what age do you usually test
kittens?

There are about 5 doctors at the veterinary practice I take my cats to. The
vet I usually deal with told me (last fall) he couldn't test kittens until
they were at least 12 wks. old. When I took the most recent litter up to be
checked (when they had diarrhea and weren't eating) I saw a different
(younger) vet who told me she could test them then (they were 2-3 wks old).
She did and the results were negative. She warned that there could be a
false positive at that age but if it was negative then they were negative.
The rescue group we're fostering for told me I shouldn't trust the results
because they were so young. So now I'm confused.

The kittens are now 7 weeks old and are itchy to get out of the cat play pen
I'm keeping them in. I don't want them interacting with my resident cats
unless I'm pretty sure they aren't positive. So do I need to get them
re-tested? Are they old enough yet?


Thanks

W


Well, a negative FeLeuk doesn't mean it will stay Negative. I lost
a cat to FeLeuk last year who had tested negative earlier. I have
another
one who nearly died 2 months ago, tested out positive to FeLeuk -- did
a
CBC and it came back with low white count, 80% lymphocytes but NO
NRBC's.
He's alive and well on a regimin of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory.

So I'd say testing again at 6-7 months and maybe even 6 months again
after
that. because they can hold the virus in their bone marrow which will
giveyou a
negatiove test, then it can suddenly "bloom."

LT