I have had burmese for a little over 3 years now. I had my first litter about 16 months ago and the breeder from whom I had my burmese had also become a friend so she had one of my kittens.

I am in no way an experienced breeder and do not profess to be but I have serious concerns about this person but before I take things any further, I would like as many opinions as possible to ensure I am doing the right thing as I do not want to harm her reputation if I am just being oversensitive.

The kitten this lady had has turned out to be small. If she is 5lb wet through, that is generous. She has had a litter 4 weeks ago with her and 2 of the kittens took more than an hour to be born and had to be pulled out, I think becasue the cat is too small to have kittens safely. She says it was big kittens as opposed to small cat but I have her litter sister who at best is only marginly bigger and I am having her neutered as she is not really big enough to breed from. Obviously she is currently on the active register but I do not know if I am being too cautious by being terrified she is going to breed her again when she had such a traumatic birth and the fact she is small, is not good for the breed in general. She has also said (she is 16 months old) that she will continue to grow as she matures but I can not find out at what age her pelvis is not going to grow any further and at 16 months, I can not see it growing much more. I need to know if breeding from such a small burmese is wrong and if I should remove her from the active register but offer to take the cat back (which I would be more than happy to do)

In addition to this, one of the kittens that was recently born began to have problems and on the end of the telephone, could hear this kitten and she sounded distressed and in pain and said she needed to be taken to the vets, either for treatment or to be put to sleep so she was not suffering. I was told that the vet could not do anything and the kitten would be dead by morning.

I know many responsible breeders have access to antibiotics but this lady obtains hers from spain and seems to indescriminately put them on antibiotics. A loose bowel movment - 7 days synulox, 2 sneezes - 7 days synulox.

She maintains she is at the top of her 'game' and that nobody knows as much as she does. She will listen to nobody. I nagged her for months to get her stud to the vets as he was clearly in pain but by the time she did, he had to be put to sleep but she still justifies not taking him in to be treated.

If anyone is kind enough to help me and give me some advice, what would also be valuble would be to know how many years experience you have as I want more than double her total experience as I want to be sure I am doing the right thing so I can add up all the years from any advice I recieve.

Generally, I do thinks she is a capable breeder but I also feel some of her practices are outright wrong. Having her stud as father and also great grandfather, I feel is wrong but she tells me it is normal and common?

I am also visiting my vet this week where I will be seeking a further opinion because I have grave concern but at the same time, I acknowledge that I do not have the experience to know if or not my concerns are justified

Many thanks for reading

The only thing that would really seem to be odd about any of that, to be honest, is the refusal to take her stud to the vet. As for the rest:

1. Since returning to Burmese very recently after about seven years without one, I have been astounded at how small the girls are these days. One which won BOV at a show not long ago (aged 14 weeks) had a lovely type but was so painfully small I was surprised she even got through vetting in. In short, small now seems to be normal

2. Antibiotic resistance is a problem of course, but equally, if you take a kitten to the vet for diarrhoea or sneezing you are going to be given antibiotics. At one stage there was a legal route to get these through Ireland. If a kitten goes down with diarrhoea after the vet has closed, you are going to have to pay at least £100 (and much more at some vets) before you have even got through the door, and with some causes of diahorrea, if you leave it till the next morning with a 6 week old kitten it can be too late. If you are paying a vast amount of money to get through the door then you are far more likely to take a chance on the diarrhoea being due to a torovirus rather than being bacterial and you much more likely to leave it. And sometimes you will make the wrong decision and lose kittens. If you have antibiotics on standby you will dose the kitten straight away. It is right for the goverment to be concerned about misuse of antibiotics but farmers can get the things on the nod and keep them in stock, why can't breeders? If I knew how to get antibiotics from Spain, believe me I would get them!

3. follows on from 2. really. If you are going to be charged £100 before you even set foot in the door of an emergency vets (and for some emergency vets the fee is MUCH higher than that), then unless you have vast amounts of money you are not going to go there out of hours to have a new born kitten put down. There was a time when breeders could obtain chloroform from a pharmacist to have in hand for just this sort of thing. I have never actually asked but I imagine those days are long gone.

Liz

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Thanks for your reply Liz,

There are a couple of things I would like to follow up if that is ok. I appreciate the fact that Burmese are smaller these days. Is that not more reason to only breed from queens of a good size so they return to their original size?

I think you are right about the chloroform, it is no longer available and I know that used to be used for newborns if it was needed. The kitten I was talking about, I did not make clear that she was not a newborn. She was 3 1/2 weeks old and was playing one day, would not eat much the next, the day after had clearly started to deteriorate which is when I heard her distressed crys over the telephone. I was then told she would be dead by morning so there was no point in taking her to the vets because they could not do anything and it was during normal surgery hours that this occurred

This is where I have the problem but I am not sure if I lose my objectivity. Because I have only had one litter and I am not knowledgeable enough about what is ok and what is not in breeding circles, when mine were 3 weeks of age, if that had happened, she would have been at the vets to see if she could be saved and if not, to have her put to sleep to prevent further suffering.

[QUOTE=Saikou;575832]I think you need another burmese breeder to comment on whether the cat is too small to breed. I personally wouldn't use a small girl to breed from but thats personal preferance.

I would have thought if the pelvic opening was too small, then the kittens would not have been born. You don't say whether the 2 that took a long time to be born were dead or not. because the queen has to do all the work. If she was a maiden as well

The sound of a distressed kitten doesn't sound too good, and I have to say that if it was mine in obvious distress then a trip to the vet to be pts would have been the kindest thing, but when you know in your heart of hearts that there is very little you can do then being pts is the kindest thing

Alot of people in general, do not understand antibiotics and the way they work, especially those of a certain generation that view them as miracle drugs.

Inbreeding is very common, and I have my own views on that - which I will refrain from standing on my soap box about It is common practice across the CF and as such viewed as acceptable, which I would disagree with, but I am avoiding the soap box.

I am not saying whether I agree or disagree, but there is always another side to the story, and things may not be as they appear. [/QUO

Thank you so much for your reply.

I did speak to a breeder who has decades of experience and she would not breed from a burmese that was less than 6lb but need more than 1 opinion so that I know what I decide to do, if anything is the right thing to do.

What I know about the birth of the kittens is only what I have been told as I was not there. 35 years of breeding and she said this had been the most traumatic birth she had gone through. Kitten one I was told "by the time I managed to pull it out, it was dead", that was the first kitten that took more than an hour and she could not push it out which is why it was literally pulled out from her. I am not 100% sure but I think the other was a stillborn

I really appreciated your comments about the 3 1/2 week old baby girl. I would love you to get on your soap box because that is one thing I am most upset about. That little mite, and I acknowledge she may well have been right that she was not going to survive, but to let her suffer is what still haunts me after hearing her cries.

I also agree about the antibiotics and the generation thing in some people. I do not like confrontation but when I was questioned as to why I did not demand antibiotics for what was a viral infection and I explained that they do not have any use in viral illness, she suggested that there is not actually such a thing as a virus and it has been made up to explain things that can not easily be diagnosed as bacterial. I did confront that though I did not feel that she had changed her opinion

[quote=gmj;576182]Thanks for your reply Liz,

There are a couple of things I would like to follow up if that is ok. I appreciate the fact that Burmese are smaller these days. Is that not more reason to only breed from queens of a good size so they return to their original size?

Burmese do seem to be smaller than in past years - and I imagine that is because they are highly inbred, particularly in the UK, as we cannot currently register imported Burmese with GCCF. I've studied burmese pedigrees for years and the situation is very worrying now - I've tried to get the clubs to take notice of this but it falls on deaf ears and they say there is no problem
I've heard it said that it should be fine to breed with a girl over 5 lbs in weight. I've also heard it said that smaller girls labour and give birth more easily. I've had smallish girls myself and I have to say that they've never had problems giving birth - in 19 years of breeding I have only had 3 girls need c-sections (2 Burmese and 1 Asian - the Burmese were mother and daughter interestingly enough - the mother was a good size and the daughter rather small - the Asian girl was a good size)




I think you are right about the chloroform, it is no longer available and I know that used to be used for newborns if it was needed. The kitten I was talking about, I did not make clear that she was not a newborn. She was 3 1/2 weeks old and was playing one day, would not eat much the next, the day after had clearly started to deteriorate which is when I heard her distressed crys over the telephone. I was then told she would be dead by morning so there was no point in taking her to the vets because they could not do anything and it was during normal surgery hours that this occurred

I think if a kitten is in obvious pain and distress then it really is kinder to go to the vet.

As for the comment about viruses being a myth, that is utter nonsense. The majority of cat diseases are caused by viruses. But it's common practice to give antibiotics even in the case of a virus, purely to prevent secondary bacterial infections that could make things a lot worse.

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Burmese do seem to be smaller than in past years - and I imagine that is because they are highly inbred, particularly in the UK, as we cannot currently register imported Burmese with GCCF. I've studied burmese pedigrees for years and the situation is very worrying now - I've tried to get the clubs to take notice of this but it falls on deaf ears and they say there is no problem
I've heard it said that it should be fine to breed with a girl over 5 lbs in weight. I've also heard it said that smaller girls labour and give birth more easily. I've had smallish girls myself and I have to say that they've never had problems giving birth - in 19 years of breeding I have only had 3 girls need c-sections (2 Burmese and 1 Asian - the Burmese were mother and daughter interestingly enough - the mother was a good size and the daughter rather small - the Asian girl was a good size)

As for the comment about viruses being a myth, that is utter nonsense. The majority of cat diseases are caused by viruses. But it's common practice to give antibiotics even in the case of a virus, purely to prevent secondary bacterial infections that could make things a lot worse.

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Well that does put rather a different complexion on it. I find myself wondering if this breeder is perhaps in serious financial trouble - after all you say she more or less let her stud cat die as well, that sounds like a very odd thing to do even if looked at from a purely financial point of view.

Liz

That is a bit odd, to say the least

Liz

You are not too far off the mark with the financial thing. I know she is not well off and she does not have money to waste but she is not in 'trouble'. I respect that she has many years experience and there are many times I have understood why she has not taken a cat to the vets when it is minor ailments. But to allow this baby to suffer as she did because she likely would not have survived and did not want to spend money that she would not recoup is what really troubles me. That baby crying when I was on the phone is something I don't know if I will ever forget because I know she was allowed to suffer for another 24 hours minimum and that hurts me deeply