Breeding Complications?

I've just bred my Sabre-girl and am anxiously waiting for signs that she is pregnant. Naturally, everyone in the family is also watching for signs of a worst case scenario; even though I'm not even sure what that could be

So my question is, what can go wrong immediately after a breeding? I know females can get pyo if they are not bred, but is there anything associated with breeding? And how would you even go about treating illness in a pregnant cat without risking the unborn kittens?

Very worst case scenario I can think of is incompatible blood types (though I've not heard of anything fatal coming out of that)...The no case is of course, the mating didn't take...

As for treating illnesses, I will leave that up to the vet. I have heard of kittens lost because the queen developed URI just before delivery, passing it on to the kits. The queen survived, the kittens didn't.

Immidiately after a breeding I guess infections of various kinds are the biggest risk: E. coli-infections, G-strep...

Some types of antibiotics can be given without the kittens being harmed, but a lot of course depends on the state of the queen. If she's in great physical stress, the kittens are at risk even if the drugs used are supposed to be safe.

Sometimes less harmful infections are treated with "mild" antibiotics so the queen is comfortable (but not cured) and she's correctly treated (and cured) after the kittens have been born. But this is usually only possible if the infection is spotted late during pregnancy. You don't want a cat to go with an infection through a whole pregnancy.

Immuno compromisation from rabies vaccine or general vaccine to close to mating can cause issues.
Daisy

Originally Posted by Sol

Immidiately after a breeding I guess infections of various kinds are the biggest risk: E. coli-infections, G-strep...

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How are these passed on to a female cat? Does bathing the stud before breeding prevent infections?

Originally Posted by moonandstarkatz

Immuno compromisation from rabies vaccine or general vaccine to close to mating can cause issues.
Daisy

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I've read that vaccines before breeding are a good thing since they can boot the female's levels of antibodies and provide a more potent colostral milk to the kittens.

Of course, I'd never try that, since I've seen enough bad reactions to vaccines that I'd never want to take the risk.

Originally Posted by FerrisCat

How are these passed on to a female cat? Does bathing the stud before breeding prevent infections?

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Both E. coli and G strep is hard to prevent since both these bacterial strains are present in the cat naturally (and usually causes no harm). You can read some about G strep here.

Chlamydiosis is also something that might transfer during a mating. It causes conjuctivitis in the cat but is cured with antibiotics. You can test an infected cat for it with PCR (from a swab sample from the eyes), but a cat without symptoms can carry and these cats have to be blood tested for anti bodies in order to be discovered. If the cat is vaccinated for Chlamydiosis there's however no way you can find out if a cat without symptoms is a carrier or not since a vaccinated cat will have antibodies, just like the naturally infected ones.

The vaccine for Chlamydiosis isn't very effective and doesn't prevent disease. It may however make the symptoms less severe or supress the symptoms completely (and then you have yourself a symptom free carrier).

what kind of cats are you breeding?

I'm breeding Turkish Vans We're due for our first litter in one month!

Best of luck! Make sure you send picture's.