Thoughts on FIV/FeLV testing?

[spookzilla]

After losing my beloved Madeline, I’m at the point where I’m *thinking* about the idea of adopting another kitten. My resident cat Malachi is 5 years old and has always had a feline companion and genuinely enjoys their company. I expect to adopt a female kitten as this would be the least likely to cause issues with Malachi (no guarantees of course). In the past when I adopted a new cat, it was always strongly recommended to do a SNAP test for FIV and FeLV. Now I’ve been reading that’s it’s not that common and many rescues that used to screen are no longer doing it (mainly due to cost I expect). The high #s of false positives and the long incubation period are also factors. What do people think about doing this test? I want to ensure that whoever I bring home is healthy and most importantly not going to expose my resident cat to anything. What are your experiences with the test? Thanks

 

[Moonlight_wolf]

My anxiety said yea to testing. My vet said that ideally you would test any new kitten coming into a house and then test them again at like12-14 weeks old (or 30 days later) (but their second test they should at least be 12-14 weeks old according to my vet) before introducing the new cat to the old cat. That’s not always viable for everyone. It’s really up to you how anxious you want to be. The rates of FIV and FELV have been declining due to vaccination and such. So the odds are in your favor. What I did is I vaccinated my older cat, tested the younger one when she came into the house. And a month later tested her again. But I didn’t keep them separate for that whole 30 days.