Siamese mixes and sensitive tummies

xcourtney3

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I've been reading over some of the older posts, and I noticed a lot of Siamese mix kitties seem to have sensitive stomachs, including my lynx point mix. Out of curiosity, is this a coincidence or is it something characteristic of the breed?
 

rad65

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A lot of times, purebred animals have more health problems than mixed breeds because breeders historically are concerned with looks over health, so a beautiful cat who has a bad immune system is going to be bred over a healthy, misshapen cat (I'm not saying 100% of the time, but it has historically happened a lot). Animals that are one or two generations removed from pureblood, like a siamese mix, will have an immune system between mixed and pure blood, so there is still a higher likihood of digestive problems.

You see it in humans, too. Hemophaelia is common in royal families because Queen Victoria had it and since she was royalty (pureblood for this analogy), she was allowed to breed and continue her lineage despite the fact that nature would not have allowed her to live under any circumstance besides being pampered royalty.

So yes, Simese tend to have more health problems, but so do all other purebred and recent generation mixes.
 

kailie

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I know my Imhotep certainly has a sensitive stomach. If he eats any kind of wet food at all, he will immediately vomit it back up. Certain dry foods don't agree with him as well, but he has been doing very well with the Kirkland and he never has had a problem with treats either.
 

thoenix

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Our new babies are Siamese mixes and MALP has a severe rice allergy and can't tolerate large amounts of kibble (though we expect that will get better as her gut heals now that we've discovered the rice allergy and gotten it out of her diet.
 

saitenyo

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It is something I've noticed too! Both my cats are siamese mixes, and my younger cat can't tolerate any grain, and really does best on an all-canned or raw diet. Kibble, grain, and even sometimes canned give her soft stools.

I know purebreds can be prone to health issues sometimes as a result of a limited gene pool, but I see this issue a lot even in non-pure siamese like mine. I wonder if there's just some digestive sensitivity in the breed that often gets passed down the line along with the lovely pointed patterns.

Out of curiosity, what kind of body type do all your meezers have? My older cat, Apollo has a more stocky, "applehead" siamese body type (more like you're average cat) whereas Athena displays way more of the lean, lanky siamese looks. I'm wondering if it's something that arose specifically in the more selective breeding that produced the lankier modern versions.
 
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