MATING

Once you establish that your queen is in season, you should put her together with the mate you have chosen for her. The female should be brought to her mate, rather than the other way around. If a male is transported to an area he doesn't know, he will spend too much time examining his new environment to pay enough attention to his mate.

It is critical in breeding pedigreed cats that the mating take place under controlled conditions. The breeding area should be somewhat confined, with a floor that provides good traction for the cats. It should provide a shelf or a cat tree so the male has some place to go if the queen turns on him and attempts to scratch him after breeding.

The breeding area should be easily accessible to you. While you will want to be sure to document that a mating has occurred, you might not necessarily want to spend all your time observing the entire mating process, as it can go on for hours or days.

Many times, especially if the queen is in a very strong season, mating will occur rather rapidly. With a queen who is extremely receptive and a male who is exprienced, up to four matings have been known to occur within the first hour after the pair was put together. This is unusual, however.

Some males will take their time, and you may see the sire "talking" to the queen and preening himself, rubbing against her and washing her. This can be a very interesting courtship ritual and can go on for hours, but eventually, mating will occur. During mating, the male mounts the female, grabbing her neck in his teeth in order to control his position and limit her movement.

After penetration and ejaculation, the male will generally jump away, as the withdrawal of his barbed penis may cause the queen some discomfort. (You must provide an area for him to leap away, as the queen will sometimes attempt to scratch him.) At this point the queen usually gives a loud cry, known as the mating cry, and you may be able to document a mating if you are able to hear what is going on. If you winess the mating, you may feel that it appears rather dramatic or even brutal.

Once you establish that mating is occurring, check the cats frequently. Pay special attention to the neck of the queen, as some trauma may occur to this area. Also, be certain that both cats have adequate food, water and litter if you are leaving them together for awhile. If the queen stops showing signs of being in season, you may separate the cats together for three days and confirm three matings on each of those days.

Cats are one of the very few mammals that are induced ovulators. This means the act of mating stimulates the female to release eggs so that they can be fertilized:
fertilization usually occurs approximately 24 hours after mating. Induced ovulators can be made pregnant at each intercourse with the male. If your males are not controlled and if two different males are able to breed your queen while she is in season, than she can become pregnant by both of the males. Needless to say, this is not a proper breeding practice.

While you do not want your male to be overly aggressive and injure your queen, you also do not want a male to be so reluctant that mating never occurs. There are many reasons for reluctance on the part of males:

1. Your potential sire may just be too young to breed. Male cats mature slightly later than female cats, and many males will begin to show signs of sexual maturity before they are actually sexually mature. In this instance, the best thing to do is just to wait until your male gets a bit older.

2. Some males are reluctant because they do not know the queen being confined with them. In this case, the courting ritual can last until the queen is out of season.

3. Some males who are normally confined may feel a new cat is an unwelcome addition to their area, even if she is a queen in season. Male cats become extremely acclimated to a set routine, and anything that changes his routine may be viewed with great reluctance and displeasure.

Many times, all that is necessary to change a male cat's reluctance is time and patience. However, if your male never breeds a female even though he has been put together with different, proven queens, take him to your veterinarian for a thorough check-up. If necessary, your veterinarian may draw blood and have it checked to make certain the male has adequate levels of hormones. If he does not and you still want possibility of hormone supplements.

Queens may be reluctant in two very different ways. The first problem is the queen who just does not seem to come into season. This may be due to inadequate light in the cattery and can be easily remedied by adding lights, especially those that approximate the natural light spectrum. This also happens in winter. Cats in the wild tend to come into season in the late winter or early spring, when the ddays lengthen. So your reluctant queen may very well begin to cycle as soon as spring arrives.

Some queens, even though they are in season, may not permit a male to approach them. There are several reasons why this may happen. The first is that she may not feel comfortable with the new environment of the breeding area or breeding cage, and wants to get to know the new area first. Avoid this problem by having your queen visit the breeding area, without a male, several times so she gets to know it.

Your queen may also feel uncomfortable with the male cat she is put in with, if she does not know him. This may be remedied by having the two cats live with each other to let the female get used to the male. After awhile he is no longer an unknown cat, and when she goes into season, she may very well let him approach her for breeding.

If you do not want to have your queen living in the same cage as your male, let her live in a cage next to him or in the same room as his cage. This way she gets to know him and he becomes a familiar cat in the Cattery. Of course, with your male in stud pants having the freedom to run loose in the cattery at certain times, he will be a member of the colony and all the cats will know him.

In other situations, your queen may not have adequate hormone levels to become pregnant or to maintain a pregnancy. Your veterinarian can help determine this and can usually remedy the situation by administering hormone therapy.

If you have a queen who continually exhibits signs of being in season but is a reluctant breeder, you might want to make certain she is actually going into season. To determine this, take her to your veterinarian while she is exhibiting seasonal behavior and have your veterinarian take a vaginal smear. Examination of the cells in this smear will reveal whether your queen is truly in a seasonal cycle.

There are, of course, medical reasons why queens do not cycle. One common problem is ovarian cysts. This can be diagnosed by your beterinarian using sophisticated ultrasound equipment. If your veterinarian does not find evidence of cysts while viewing the abdomen using ultrasound, ask that he or she also view the side area of the queen. An ovarian cyst may be more easily viewed form the side of the body.

Your queen may also have a problem of inadequate hormones. This can be diagnosed by blood testing. At day 25 of a queen's pregnancy, the hormone progesterone, which is normally produced by the ovaries, begins to be produced by the placentas. Progesterone helps to make certain the pregnancy goes to term. If this hormone is not produced efficiently by the placenta, the pregnancy can be lost through a spontaneious abortion or by having the fetuses re-absorbed by the queen. If you find this is your problem, ask your veterinarian about supplemental hormone therapy.

Oral, ocular, or intranasal (within the nose) infection results in a local infection of the epithelium (lining) of these regions, which then spreads to involve the remainder of upper respiratory epithelial cells; The infection may even spread to the lungs. The infection generally remains superficial but may spread through the boood (viremia) to produce a generalized infection. Feline viral rhinotracheitis generally does not produce a viremia (the presence of a virus in the bloodstream), but in certain instances, viremia may occur, and infection of the osteoblasts (bone-forming cells) may result.

You will not usually find too many physical difficulties with breeding. The one that seems most apparent is differences in size. While the majority of males in every breed are larger than the females, this size difference can be quite obvious in certain breeds of pedigreed cats. If your male is much larger than your female, he may have some problem mounting her, holding her neck and completing penetration simply because he is so much longer.

Some breeders will assist a breeding by holding the queen down in position so the male can breed her. This may well work, but it is not recommended. If your queen is being bred against her will, she might very will panic, especially when the male withdraws his penis and she feels pain. In her panic, she may turn not only on the male, but also on the breeder who is holding her down. you can get injured this way, and if she is frustrated at not being able to get to you, your queen may go after the male in a very aggressive manner and harm him. In addition, there is the matter of ethics. If we really care as much about our cats as we claim we do, it is not ethical for us to participate in what is the feline equlvalent of rape.

We start our breeding program wth several queens to protect our program from all those small difficulties that inevitably arise. If one of our queens does not become a breeder, then it may be a problem but hardly an insurmountable one. We can asways acquire a new queen. Force and intentionally inflicting pain have absolutely no place in a cattery.

Pedigreed cats are a precious gift, and while we are breeders, we also have a responsibility to our cats to protect them from harm and pain. If your attitude toward pedigreed cats is not consistent with the concepts of care, love and protection for them, you should not be breeding at all.

Breeders of pedigreed cats are dealing with nature, and we all know that nature is not always pretty, nor is it co-operative. There is only so far you should be willing to go and still call yourself a responsible breeder. Our concern is ultimately for the cats we own and not for a litter of kittens that may or may not be born some time in the distant future. Until artificial insemination is readily available and the resulting litters are accepted by the cat registries, you will just have to face the difficulties that can occur when breeding pedigreed cats and realize that everything will not always go just as you planned.

After you have witnessed your queen being bred, watch very closely for signs of pregnancy. Most breeders look for the nipples to become more apparent and to turn a reddish hue. This is known as pinking up. However, many queens do not pink up until late in their pregancy and some don't pink up until they deliver their kittens.

The first sign of pregnancy may be a change in behavior. Most queens will become extremely affectionate when they are pregnant; They purr, knead their paws and rub themselves on their owners. Some queens will even roll on the ground as if they are in season again. 15 and 20 days and by X-Ray days. Your veterinarian can confirm a pregnancy much earlier that this using ultrsound, but how early depends on how sensitive the ultra sound machine is and how skilled the veterinarian is in interpreting its readings.

There are many different methods of counting the days from the time the queen was bred until her due date. One way is to count the number of days of gestation from the day of the first verified mating. A queen's gestation can range from 58 to 71 days. This will vary not only from breed to breed, but also from line to line within a breed and even from cat to cat in a particular line.

As a general rule, a queen who delivers her kittens at 67 days the first time will generally deliver at 67 days, or a day later, each time she is pregnant. If you count her days the same way after mating for each pregnancy, you will have a fairly good idea of her due date with every delivery.

Through out my 24 years, I have had Queens that would cycle with no results after being bred. I have had Queens not go in season for 2 years or more. I have had Queens have heat cycles over and over, which is not healthy for the female, and if she is not going to be bred she needs to be spayed. With the help and knowledge of my veterinarian, and literature, I have a routine I use to see if a queen can become pregnant or can have a heat cycle.

Make sure the queen does not have an infection or other health problems, before you ever attempt to bred this female. Take her to the vet and have her checked out thoroughly, for infections or other problems.

If I have a queen that has not cycled and I'm concerned as to whether or not I should spay her, a dosage of Progesterone is given the female. A time span of at least 3 weeks goes by and the female does go in heat, great! But,this will not be a fertile heat cycle. But you know the female is capable of heat cycles and the jump start of hormones has started her on her way.

If I have a queen that has been bred and does not get pregnant, there is a different kind of hormone therapy I use. When the femlae goes in heat, I give her FERETAGYL, which is a fertility hormone drug. On site of the queen goin in heat, she gets her first dosage of FERTAGYL, than 24 hours later, which is when the queen actually ovulates, I give another dose of FERTAGYL. If you queen does not get pregnant, than it just wasn't meant to be. I then have my female spayed and placed in a good loving home.

Gonadorelin stimulates the production and the release of FSH and LH from the anterior pituitary. Secretion of endogenous GnRH from the hypothalamus is thought to be controlled by several factors, including circulating sex hormones.

Gonadorelin causes a surge-like release of FSH and LH after a single injection. In cows and ewes, this can induce ovulation, but not in estrus mares. A constant infusion of gonadorelin will initially stimulate LH and FSH release, but after a period of time, levels will return to baseline.

What about a male that doesn't want to bred? Again there is a hormone therapy used to make the male more aggressive and want to bred, this is called TESTOSTERONE.

The principle endogenous androgenic steroid, testosterone is responsible for many secondary sex characteristic of the male as well as the maturation and growth of the male reproductive organs and increasing libido.

The use of injectable esters of testosterone in veterinary medicine is limited primarily to its use in dogs (and perhaps cats) for the treatment of testosterone-responsive urinary incontinence in neutered males. Testosterone has been used to treat a rare form of dermatitis (exhibited by bilateral alopeci) in neutered male dogs. These drugs are also used in bovine medicine to produce an estrus-detector (teaser) animal in cull cows heifers, steers.

It is certainly better to call your veterinarian on a "false alarm," even if only to gain reassurance, than to delay in the hoipe that in time the situation will correct itself with help. Often the problem can be dealt with rather simply if attended to at once. However, the same problem, when neglected, becomes complicated--often leading to and emergency operation.

A queen goes into labor (serious straining) and does not delver a kitten within two hours. Purposeful straining indicates a kitten is partly in the birth canal. It is a mistake to wait four to six hours as the mother is is now exhausted and normal delivery may not be possible even when the cause is removed.

The queen passes dark green fluid before the delivery of her first kitten. This indicates separation of the placenta from the wall of the uterus which means the kitten is not getting oxygen from the mother and may die. After the first kittn, green or bloody fluid is normal.

The membranes rupture and a kitten is not delivered in 30 minutes. The passage of yellow fluid means rupture of the water bag (amniotic sac) surrounding the kitten.

Labor stops and there are signs of restlessness, anxiety, weekness or fatigue. Kittens come 15 minutes to two hours apart. Over three hours between kittens is sign of trouble. This provision need not apply if the queen is resting happily and nursing her kittens without signs of distress.