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The Bengal Health

In our cattery we test all our studs and queens for PK Deficiency and PRA-b. We take health as the most important thing for our bengals.

The health of our Bengals and kittens is our first priority and we take this seriously. We can guarantee you that all our kittens are not PK Def or PRA-b affected.

Apart from PK-Deficiency and PRA-b, we also screen all our cats for HCM yearly. To know more about the heart disease HCM please click here.

 

What is PK-Def and PRA-B?

What does it mean PK Def – N/K? And PRA-b – N/N?
If my cat is a carrier of these diseases, should I worry?

 

Progressive retinal atrophy (PRA) has been known to affect purebred cats including Bengals. Cats affected with this form of blindness have normal vision at birth and they have vision loss progresses slowly and is variable, with most cats becoming blind by usually 3-5 years of age. There is no treatment available for the condition.

This is an autosomal recessive condition, thus the disease is not associated with gender and two copies of the mutation are required for the cats to lose their vision. Carriers, cats that have one copy of the mutation (N/PRA) are not affected and have normal vision.

Pyruvate kinase (PK) deficiency is an inherited disease occasionally encountered in some cat breeds such as Bengals. The symptoms of the disease usually appear between 6 months to 5 years of age, with weight loss, loss interest in food, weakness with different grades of anaemia. Some affected cats never show symptoms during their whole life. The disease is inherited as an autosomal recessive trait, exactly like PRA disease.

Affected cats (K/K or “Affected”) arise when affected or carrier cats are mated with each other. Since carrier cats remain healthy though, and since affected cats may not necessarily be detected until they are a few years of age, the potential exists for both carrier and affected cats to have significant numbers of litters before the disease is identified.

As it is a disease fairly common in Bengals, ethical breeders need to test their mating cats to know exactly what kind of cross they do and always to avoid crossing two cats carrying for the disease, because if they cross 2 carrier cats, some kittens will have the disease that will appear once the cat is already in their new home. So if we test all our breeding cats, why do we use cats that carry one copy of this recessive disease? If breeding cats would only be selected by checking if they carry or not, we could reduce the genetic pool very fast, and as long as parents are tested and matings are planned accordingly, we can keep selecting for traits we also prioritize such as character or beauty traits without jeopardizing the health of any litter.