Anatoly and Aria's kittens at 3 weeks....

Here are Anatoly and Aria's new kittens, we think all girls. All currently under evaluation. All are point or point carriers and dilute carriers. Enquires welcome.

Brown tabby girl

golden brown tabby girl

 Neva masquerade (colourpoint) seal or blue girl

An early present from Santa!

Aria's kittens arrived on Tuesday, two lovely brown tabby boys?.....dad is our fab Witchfyre Anatoly. This was an extra litter due to a special request and are Anatoly's first babies.
Was a little disappointed no colourpoints....then 24 hours later (is this a record?) my little miracle arrived! Our first colourpoint of the year, we think a girl...she hopefully will take over from mum who will retire after this litter.
After declaring our intention to concentrate on the colourpoint, or Neva Masquerade in sept 2009, god toyed with us and although most of our cats are point carriers, except for Sam, no points arrived....
So we are doubly pleased with the appearance of this baby and that Anatoly is a point carrier :)
All kittens will remain under evaluation.
We have a female kitten available from Lavinia's litter due to the inevitable timewasters, these kittens available end Jan....enquiries welcome

Kittens at six weeks

Kittens at 6 weeks, where has time gone....

Elisaveta silver tortie tabby ~under assessment

Fabs silver tabby ~under assessment

 Dubrava brown tabby ~under assessment

Golochka (aka Sasha) brown tabby ~ reserved

 'Mum...she's taken my cracker....'

Here we are.....kittens at 3 weeks

Our lovely Sam and Lavinia babies are now three weeks old and have been waiting to take these pictures as we do not use flash between eight and 20 days due to possible eye damage. All kittens doing very well and have now escaped the kittening box and are on the prowl....
All kittens are currently under assessment. Our waiting list is full.

Witchfyre Dubrava, brown tabby girl

 Witchfyre Fabian, silver shaded? tabby boy

Witchfyre Galochka, brown tabby girl

Witchfyre Elisaveta, silver tortie tabby girl

Our kittens are one week old

 The jury is still out on exact sex of kittens, and indeed colours. Had this problem last time with Sam and Lulu's babies, so am taking a best estimate at this point. Kitten 1 probably a brown tabby, pictured above we are not sure, girl or boy, so watch this space...

 Kitten 2 pictured above we think most likely a girl and possibly a tortie tabby.

 kitten 3 pictured above most likely a boy, could be a silver with gold

Kitten 4 most likely a boy, possibly silver.
More updates in a couple of weeks when we will know whether boys/girls and better idea of colours....keep watching :)

New kittens have arrived!

Our new sibby kittens are here. Dad is Musrafy Samurai of Witchfyre, golden tabby, and mum is Witchfyre Silvaamune, silver tortie tabby. More details and photos in a week or so. Kittens ready for new homes mid January. Enquires welcome.

HCM and PKD1 in Siberian Cats...a response to a breeders earlier post

A recent posting by a UK breeder regarding the condition HCM and PKD in Siberians contained inaccurate information. I responded to this post but it seems the person in question has chosen to ignore my comment.

Here is some information about HCM in cats.
http://siberianresearch.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=51&Itemid=72 http://www.fabcats.org/owners/heart/cardiomyopathy.html http://www.fabcats.org/hcm/index.html

General opinion is that HCM is caused by a DOMINANT gene. SRI have had some anomalies in certain lines and a theory of triggers and suppressors has been put forward, (source conversation with Tom Lundburg). However it is acknoledged that not all pedigree records are correct and that more data has to be gathered and the more people who participate in sharing loses of cats with HCM instead of hiding them, will improve the future for all breeds as this progressive disease is in most populations of pedigree and non pedigree cats.
There are many 'strains' of HCM in the cat populations, I think there are at least three identified in the Siberian to date?
Regarding inbreeding. You will only have a increased number of affected cats if you use a HCM cat. If one parent have one HCM gene there is a 50/50 chance of passing on the condition.
If both parents have one HCM gene this increases to a 75% chance of offspring being affected
If one cat carries two HCM genes all offpring will be affected.
Remember, these probabilities are for EACH kitten and not a percentage of the litter.
As we have only had a handful of reported cases in the UK it is prudent to monitor your own cats and do follow ups of offspring. I must point out that HCM and its 100s of strains has been in the human population for some time and research is still in its infancy.....

PKD1 in Siberians
Some information about testing your cats from UC Davies http://www.vgl.ucdavis.edu/services/pckd1.php
It is likely that PKD1 in Siberians will only manifest itself in cats whose origins include Persian roots or breeds using Persians as permitted outcrosses or where breeders have added these outcrosses to the gene pool. As we do not have reliable documentation about the foundation cats ancestry, or you suspect you cats ancestry may include such cats, a test may be prudent. However, if there is a strain of PKD in Siberians unique to this breed, as yet, no test has been approved. Monitoring of own cats and offspring and any occurances can be monitored and then that line tested and information shared.

It is important for those of us who breed this wonderful cat to be accurate in our publication of infornation. Many readers do not question the sources they read and can be misinformed.
NB Happily, in six years of owning and breeding Siberians, to date we have no reported cases of HCM/PKD1 cats in our foundation cats onwards :). If this changes I will cetainly let SRI know.