Possible Cryptorchid??

Hi guys. I have a male Devon and suspect he is a cryptorchid. He was purchased with breeding rights (as we are a brand new Devon breeder) and he was going to be my foundation stud. I will be putting a call in to the vet so she can check him to make sure but wanted some input from you guys first.
He will be 6 months on April 5th. There is definitely one testicle that has descended, but I can not even palpate the other one. Is it still possible that it will descend?
Also, this will be my second issue in a row with him. The breeder originally sold him to me as a female (read paid female price) and when he arrived here he was a male! So I decided to make lemons out of lemonade and use him as my foundation stud. The only way she offered to right the situation was to either return him for a full refund or sell me another female for $1600!
Our cats are kept in our home since we only have one queen and one male and quite frankly we are VERY attached to this boy. I would never send him back to her.
*If* he is a cryptorchid, and after knowing the breeder lied to me about his sex, what should I do? For the record we originally paid $2000 for her/him.
Help!
Please no judgements or flames. This has me so stressed out.
Here is a pic of my little love-

He is gorgeous. Six months is still really young - you need to get him examined by the vet to see how far up the testicle is. It is still possible it will descend. I recently had a boy that had one testicle ascend when he was 8 months old and my vet said if I did daily massages it could come back down but I wasn't going to breed from him anyway, so he was neutered.

It is possible that his father/grandfather also had monorchidism, it is VERY common in Persians/Exotics - not so sure about Devon Rex.

Also it is still possible that cats with one testicle can breed - is this something you would be willing to try?

Lastly for now - read your breeders contract. Does it allow for things like this? Responsible breeders would probably refund the money/send a replacement but it must be in the contract to allow for this.

Hope this helps a little bit - hopefully GK will be along with some helpful advice too

Feel free to PM me for further info.

OUCH - this sounds pretty bad. For one thing, he cannot be used for stud. By his age both should be down and ready to go. I seriously doubt the other one will drop at this point.

IMO the breeder lied to you. I cannot imagine a good breeder selling you a male instead of a female if you purchased a female. Either they cannot sex kittens or the kittens got mixed up.

You may be looking at taking this to small claims court. He can't be a stud cat, he was the wrong sex and unless the breeder is willing to give you the difference between a pet price and a breeding price, I would take it to court to get money back.

Then neuter him. You can show him in the alter class if you want and take the money to find a better breeder. Was the original intent to buy a show and breeding cat?

The problem with using him to stud is that the condition is very likely to be passed on to kittens and you don't want that. Not a good thing to be starting off with a genetic defect.

My original intent was a breeding cat. The agreement and purchase price was for a white female with full breeding rights. My husband flew to Arizona a few months ago (he knows nothing about cats) and when he arrived at midnight, I took the cat out of the carrier and my eyes bugged out- she was a he. I took the kitten the very next day to the vet and had her (the vet) write a letter that the kitten was indeed a male. I called the breeder and her offer was for me to send the cat back for a full refund or buy another female from her.
I tried to overlook all of this and make the best out of the situation knowing I was ripped off, but now this. I just called her to ask if she had ever had a problem with cryptorchidism on monorchidism and she swears no but I could get a red tabby male from her. I said I did not originally pay for a red tabby male, I paid for a white female. Well after talking to me in circles for an hour I told her I am going to the vet tomorrow or Thursday and see what they say and get back to her and we will go from there. But I feel like this is heading to court and also reporting her to the CFA.
My heart is broken because my dream is to have a small high quality cattery, show some premiers from my lines and enjoy this with my family. We love Devons so much and it was so nice to have something to enjoy with my 9 year old son that is in a wheelchair. Cat shows are an absolute joy for him which there aren't many places he enjoys more because he is so physically disabled.
So far, I have been made to feel like a criminal by other breeders when inquiring to buy a cat and now being ripped off and lied to.
If he is indeed a crypt (which as a nurse, I am 98% confident that he is) I would not want to breed him.

I am sorry you got a male when you specifically agreed upon and paid for a female. Your breeder sounds unethical. But I do want to say your white boy is very lovely and looks like a sweetheart. He does look 100% Devon to me and a sweetie who will make a good pet.

This is so sad. But we all have dealt with bad breeders at one time or another. No matter how much you research, sometimes you just get ripped off.

I had bought my first rex (show neuter) from a breeder I thought was good. My rex had his faults, but he did grand. So I went back to the same breeder when I wanted to get into breeding and asked for a nice calico female for breeding/showing. She brought the kitten to me when she was about 3 1/2 months old. Tiny thing, but rex females are small. I had the vet examine her and everything was fine. Three weeks later I had a dead kitten - she had stopped eating (never dealt with cats that would not eat) and was dead.

We had called her to let her know - she didn't believe us and we were not smart enough to have an autopsy done to back us up. She promised on the phone to replace the kitten...........then a month later sent us a letter saying that she had another kitten but it will cost us more money (then the original price of the dead kitten). Then proceeded to chew us out for not knowing that when a rex stops eating it is sick. Acted like we never owned a cat before.

Long story short we didn't get another kitten from her. She told us that we would NEVER find a breeder willing to give us breeding females. Long story short, we found a very nice breeder who sold us an adult tortie female who gave us several nice litters with outstanding kittens!

And after investigating the other breeder's lines, found out a lot of her cats had heart problems in the lines (maybe from too much inbreeding). Our original rex only lived till about 8/9 yrs old.

I learned to study pedigrees and know which lines had genetic problems.

That's so sad. Both testicles should be descended by now. Even if they would descend later on I wouldn't use him for breeding unless he's got a very unique pedigree. It's absolutely not normal not to have both testies in place at 6 months of age, not in Devon Rexes.

It is a hereditary defect so if your contract states anything about a refund or a replacement cat in such cases you're entitled to it.

I'm so sorry you had such a bad start in your breeding career.

Both testicles should be descended at that age. In the UK (GCCF registry) you need a vet signed "entire" certificate stating that both testicles have descended by at least that age in order to register the cat as a stud or you can't register any future litter from him - a cryptorchid at that age is in the UK deemed unsuitable for breeding in case he passes on any reproductive problems (which would be devastating to the breed).

I actually have a vet certified "entire" certificate for one of my boys dated when he was just 3 months old, he was intended for breeding and sired 1 litter later on before he was neutered and rehomed with me, but trust me I have a vet signed certificate that his "balls dropped" before 3 months, and if they hadn't he would never have been allowed to have a litter registered! So here, you wouldn't be able to have a registered litter out of that boy, and if you were in the UK I would suggest that you neuter and enjoy as a pet as you shouldn't breed from a cat that has problems with retention of testes, as it may lead to ongoing problems with fertility in later generations.

Our rules here are fairly harsh, but 6 months is fairly old to still have an undescended testicle.

What a lovely boy!!!! Im sorry it has been such a mess for you. I just cannot imagine sending back a kitty that I loved and I know it happens in breeding programs (likely the reason I could not be a breeder and the fact I would want to keep all the babies LOL)

My cousin's kitten was cryptorchid and our vet told us that if the testes haven't descended by 8-10 weeks, they just aren't going to. We waited until he was 10 months old and starting to get obnoxious, just in case, but in the end the vet had to cut him in 3 places to find both testicles .

Anyway, what I'm saying is that if you were sold the breeding rights and he was over 8 weeks old when you got him, the breeder should have had a pretty good idea of whether he'd be a good stud or not. I think you should at least get a refund of the price difference between a pet-quality kitten and a breeder.

What is worse is the poster wanted a female at the beginning and was sent a male!

Originally Posted by GoldenKitty45

What is worse is the poster wanted a female at the beginning and was sent a male!

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Good point. If a BREEDER can't tell the difference between a not-very-well-endowed male and a female, they shouldn't be breeding.

Originally Posted by Willowy

Good point. If a BREEDER can't tell the difference between a not-very-well-endowed male and a female, they shouldn't be breeding.

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Yeah that got me too, I know the "gender change fairy" can visit within the first few days, mistakes can be made when a kitten is newborn and covered in gunk, but if the breeder can't tell by the time a kitten is homed at around 13 weeks or so that is not a good sign. Cryptorchid or not, it's not that difficult after a few weeks. What was the cat registered as in terms of gender? Because if the papers are wrong you need to get that changed.