My family bought a kitten from a breeder a year ago who had a noticeable heart murmur with his first vet checkup at around 3 months. He was diagnosed with severe HCM and a life prognosis of a year.
The breeder offered a replacement kitten, which we took (a different breed though—they have two breeding programs). Replacement kitten at 7 months old has pretty bad lungs from a recent xray, most likely asthma. Vet says likely to be genetic given how bad the lungs look at such a young age.
Replacement kitten also came with giardia, which breeder said she might’ve picked up at her vet checkup before coming home with us (fecal breeder did for her was negative).
Breeder is generally responsive, we had a contract, came with papers, parents tested with genetic results posted, TICA/CFA certified, and kittens were very $$$$$.
Assuming the incidence of severe HCM is 10% and of bad asthma also 10%, that gives only a 1% chance that this is “just down to bad luck”
What do we even do at this point? Not sure if we’d trust a third replacement kitten, and we’ve probably spent upwards of $10k on the cats so far…
Is this breeder bad, or do we have genuinely trash luck?
The breeder offered a replacement kitten, which we took (a different breed though—they have two breeding programs). Replacement kitten at 7 months old has pretty bad lungs from a recent xray, most likely asthma. Vet says likely to be genetic given how bad the lungs look at such a young age.
Replacement kitten also came with giardia, which breeder said she might’ve picked up at her vet checkup before coming home with us (fecal breeder did for her was negative).
Breeder is generally responsive, we had a contract, came with papers, parents tested with genetic results posted, TICA/CFA certified, and kittens were very $$$$$.
Assuming the incidence of severe HCM is 10% and of bad asthma also 10%, that gives only a 1% chance that this is “just down to bad luck”
What do we even do at this point? Not sure if we’d trust a third replacement kitten, and we’ve probably spent upwards of $10k on the cats so far…
Is this breeder bad, or do we have genuinely trash luck?