Today I found an e-mail in my innbox like I usually do every day. But this mail was a bit different than the other e-mails I use to find there. This was an e-mail from a family who wanted to buy Tarutao, and they have started the process to make their own cattery. They wanted Tarutao as a partner for her balinese male Max, and that sounds like music to my ears   It´s not a pleasent thought that my little girl is moving to another home, but I am confident that she will have a great home there! And I also know that my feelings will change in time and I will be happy to have the honor of making a family as happy as we are when we got new cats. Tarutao will be the first balinese from our breeding that are moving to another cattery, and that is about time I guess   

In addition to this e-mail I got an e-mail from a family that wants to give Doc and Joker a home! This is the same family that we have had some contact with a short time ago regarding Doc & Joker. They have read about Herpes and also had a meeting with their veterinarian, and the vet said the same as I do regarding Herpes. 95% of all cats have or have had Herpes, but breeders do not tell about it. But we do! And why shouldn´t we? Of course some people will be frigthened about this and will change their mind about buying a cat from us. But we are sure that we in the long run will benefit of our attitude. And now we have done it already! The family that wants to buy Tarutao is also informed about the herpes, and they did not get scared.

We are very happy that our cats are moving to these homes, and we look forward to cooperate with them!

the medication of our kittens!! Only 7 days left    And Jagara´s right eye is much better already, the scar tissue is almost completely gone   

Muffin behaves like a 3 months old kitten, and he is very good at playing with his boy and girls. The Suprelorin-chip is a super invention! Muffin and Joker are the best friends, and the few run-ins they have had is history now. We do not tolerate any cats to take out their anger against eachother, and none of the boys was hurt in the run-ins. Joker is becomming more and more fertile now, and it´s sad to think of him being neutered before he has mated any girl successfully. But that´s life, we will not rehome him without neuter him first. But of course, if the right home appear we will consider to sell him as a fertile male. But we will not sell him fertile as a pet.  

Ellie jumps up on the dining-table when we give the cats their medication, and she does not want to go down on the floor again. Finally today we realized what she wanted - she wants us to check her out as well, and gve her some medicine like all her friends in the house got. That was no problem at all - Marie filled water in a syrringe and I examined Ellie´s eyes and ears before I gave her the "medicine". As soon as I have finished, she jumped down to the floor   

Tonight Ellie wanted to go to sleep in our bedroom before we handled the cats, but as soon as she heared us giving the cats medicine, she started to cry and I let her out of the bedroom again. She jumped up on the table again, and she got the same treatment as this morning. And after that she was happy and wanted to play. This sweet, charming and smart little girl! I just love her so!

Tonight Ellie and the cats had some chicken, and Lion-O and Jagara sounded like large lions! But no one noticed them at all, everybody was occupied with eating as much as possible at the shortest time possible. I suspect the chicken to be some kind of a drug, because after the meal all our cats looked like this

Jagara is watching over the other kittens 

The boys have their best pillow ever!  

Today I have sent some E-mails to both breeders and veterinarians and asked them about informations about Herpes. Even if we have several weeks in front of us with medication of the cats, I would like to try to find out what would be the best solution for the cats and us. We do want to continue breeding, but we will do it in the safest way possible. I guess that most people would be scared from buying a cat and/or a kitten from us since we have informed about our situation. Hopefully I will be able to get real facts about Herpes and how to prevent that the other cats would be infected of it, and maybe I will be able to inform in a way that makes people feel as safe as possible regarding buying a cat or a kitten from us in the future. We intend to make a library on our website where we will put some information about Herpes, other deseases and useful stuff for breeders and cat lovers. That´s the intension, it remains to see how it will turn out.

Herpes   

Yesterday evening I got a call from my vet, and she told me tha she had a call from SVA earlier that evening. They have examined the samples from our cats, and one of them wich have no symptoms was negative for Herpes, Clamydia and Mycoplasma. The cat with symptoms in the eyes was also negative for Herpes, Clamydia and Mycoplasma. The cat with symptoms from the eyes and the upper respitory system tested positive for Herpes and Mycoplasma. Luckily our vet had chosen to start the treatment with Doxycycline and Terramycin-Polimixin B on all our cats even before the conclution came from SVA. Now we have a group of cats in the livingroom at the ground floor, a group in the bedroom at the same floor, and the rest of the pack has the rest of our house as a playground. And they really need a playground! The whole pack is behaving like they are kittens everybody, and they play for several hours each day.

We thougth we have found a perfect home for Kikki, Joker, Doc and Mischa but the ment-to-be coowner of Kikki did not think she could give Kikki what she needed and there was not any alternatives to her. Joker and Doc was planned to move to the south of Norway, to a home that seemed to be perfect for them AND their new owners wanted to use them in breeding! They have shorthaired oriental cats, and wanted to try out the longhaired too. I sent them an e-mail when I have finished the phone with the vet, and told them about the results of the tests and gave them some links to facts about Herpes. They read some of it and decided that they would not take the chance to take Joker & Doc because they already had 3 siameses at home and they did not want to expose them for the Herpes virus. None of these 4 cats mentioned have had any symptoms of Herpes, Calici, Clamydia or Mycoplasma and they might not shed any virus at all. I have sent the new owner of Mischa an e-mail and told her too about the testresults. I have not got any answer from her yet, but she migth be occupied or she is thinking about what she should do. As long as she hasn´t said no to Mischa, it´s still a hope for here to move to this home wich would be perfect for her! We cross our fingers and hope the best!

The medication of our 15 cats and kittens 2 times a day and giving them eyedrops 3 times a day are no big deal, luckily! I guess we use 10 minutes to medicate all of them, and we are still in the very beginning to medicate every cat in the house. How long time will we need when we have given the cats treatment for 3 weeks? I guess we really will got a hang of it by that time!

I need to thank Malin (S*Vildbackens) for her support and help to find information about not only Herpes, but everything I´m asking her about! Without her we would have ended our dreams about our breeding long time ago. She´s there and she answer every question I have, at any time. Thank you so much Malin, I really look up to you and your work with developing the balinese breed.

Another support is Berit ((N)Yowie´s). She has done the same as Malin, and without Malin and Berit have ended our dreams about breeding a long time ago. Thank you so much Berit! It´s hard to stand on our feets when the storm comes, but you 2 has managed to help us in every storm.

Another breeder that has helped us with advices and information is Veena((N)Attacks). I was higly surprised when a PM from her landed in my inbox at FB. Suprised because we have had quite extended problems with our communication. I am really glad that she choose to look through the past and helped us on the way. Thank you so much Veena!

Some links to facts about Herpes

http://www.netdyredoktor.dk/sw28909.asp

http://www.netdyredoktor.dk/sw12969.asp

Forums

http://www.kattegale.dk/

http://www.sphynxdillan.se

Today we will start the medication on our young and grown up cats. It has taken some time to come to this point, but finally the time was right! If anybody needs to learn how to medicate a cat, you are most welcome! 10 young and grown up cats + 5 kittens will be given the Vibranord-mixture 2 times a day, for at least 4 weeks. And all of them will understand what we are doing as soon as we have given the first grown up its first dose. And then the battle begin...... Suddenly no cats will be seen, all of them will vanish like ghosts. I guess my daughter and my husband will have a lot of exercises in this 4 weeks that we have in front of us. But challenges is healthy and sometimes fun - I guess we will have a lot of it!

I am very happy to tell that the eyes of Jagara and Cheetara is much better than we dared to hope for! Cheetara`s eye looks almost normal now, and we hope for it to be allright in the end. Jagara`s eye has some scare tissue, and she will most likely not have a 100% normal eye with normal vision, but she is able to see something with it!   

Jagara´s eye on the 10th of January

It´s not easy to see the difference at once, but if you look closely you can see it! This pic´s from the 16th og January

All the kittens are eating very well and they have grown a lot these two last weeks. When we started to give them Vibranord they weighed only 400-450 grams - at the age of 8 weeks! Now - at the age of 10 weeks - their weight is 850-900 grams.

Kikki and Doc, whom we thoutght was pregnant, started to call on the day which we thought was their day 60 in the pregnancys. It was a bit sad, because we really wanted to have variants after Kikki and Muffin, but as the situation is here now it was the best that could happen. I do not want to think of two newborn litters here now, with Mykoplasma Felis on the run through our house   

I talked to Siv, Potis new owner, yesterday and she told me that Potis new friend, the Devon Rex Astrix, was very sick. He has a severe pneumonia and high fever and he was in really poor condition. My first thought was that Potis has infected him, even though Potis has no symptoms. Hopefully Siv´s vet will take some tests of Astrix to find out if he has Mykoplasma Felis. I called Siv´s vet and told him about the situation here, and I have sent him an e-mail giving him the details of this process we have been through the last month or so. And now I just sit here waiting for the vet to call to tell me what they would do with Astrix. I cross my fingers for Astrix to be well again without to much problems   

Our experience these last weeks have made us think a lot of the future of our cattery. We want to do our best to prevent deseases among the cats, and especially our coming litters. Some of our rutines will be changed, and as I have written before, we will not show our cats in 2011. In addition to these measures we will reduce the number of cats. That means that some of our grown ups are for sale, either neutered and as a pet, or fertile if someone wants to use them in longhair breeding. Our dream of a (N)Bekmørtnans bicolour oo/and seychellois longhair will not come true, and this is a bit sad. But we have to do what´s necessary, and in addition to the health of our cats we have to admit that nowadays there is to much work for us to have 10 cats. My health is not the best, and it looks like it´s not getting any better, but the opposite. My husband Finn-Ove´s work as a teacher is not an 8 to 4 job, but a lot more. Often he does not come home before 20.00 at night, and that is 12 hours a day! All our cats will be treated with antibiotics against the Mycoplasma infection for 4 weeks, and then they have to stay with us for some weeks before moving. We want to be as sure as we can that they are healthy when they move to a new home. Tonight we have been at the vets taking some tests of some of our cats to find out if there is something else in addition to the Mycoplasma.

The cats that are looking for new homes are GIC S*Coral Reef´s Joker (osh d 24 var), IC (N)Bekmørtnans Spitfire (bal f), (N)Bekmørtnans Wen (sia d var), (N)Bekmørtnans Dr. Meow (osh n 03 var) and (N)Himmeltinden´s Dark Rose (sia h). We have given the breeder of (N)Himmeltinden´s Dark Rose the opportunity to take her back if she wants to, and if she do Dark Rose will of course not be sold to another home   

GIC S*Coral Reef´s Joker

(N)Bekmørtnans Dr. Meow

IC (N)Bekmørtnans Spitfire

(N)Bekmørtnans Wen

(N)Himmeltinden´s Dark Rose

If you want to see more pictures of some of these cats, you can find them in their galleries on their own pages at www.bekmoertnans.com

If you want more information, don´t hesitate to send us an e-mail or give us a call.

I want to emphasize that these pictures of the cats don´t show their wonderful eyecolour!

..... when I thougth we could stop the medication of our little girls. Instead we changed to another medicine, this time Vibranord (Doxycycline) and Terramycin-Polimixin B. Both we and our vets thougth the girls had either Clamydia or Mycoplasma Felis, and the vet took a sample from their eyes and sent it to SVA in Sweden. At the same time the vet examined Jagara´s and Cheetara´s right eye, and as we was prepared on Jagara´s right eye was destroyed because of the infection. The eye was all white, and it looked like the third eyelid has grown into the eye together with the mucus membranes. Cheetara´s eye looked the same way, but the eye was not as white as Jagara´s and the vet think Cheetara migth will be able to see at least some with her eye.

6 days ago the vet who took the sample from their eyes called me and told me that she has taken the wrong test and that it was impossible to analyze it. Need I tell you that I was both mad & sad? I wanted to test some of our other cats right away, but the vet did not agree. She wanted us to wait untill she had talked to a vet at SVA(The lab in Sweden) to be sure to take the right tests and the right cats. She would have to wait till next week because she had a week off. I wrote a long mail to the vet.centre and told what we wanted and why, and yesterday we got an appointment tomorrow to take a bloodsample of Muffin, who is the only cat that´s not vaccinated against Clamydia. In addition the vet was supposed to take a test from Vascos mucus membranes in his eye, to check if it was possible to find Clamydia, Mycoplasma or other bacterias/viruses. But this afternoon another vet called me and told that SVA had found Mycoplasma Felis in Jagara´s test, they have managed to analyze it despite they said it was not possible. And now we are waiting for our vets to decide that we could start to medicate all our cats. If they do not subscribe antibiotics to our cats, we have to stop breeding and showing our cats. And we can not sell any of them, that means we will have 15 cats for as long as they live