#434 AP cat science experiments-- helping them overcome CalciVirus//testing their intelligence//measuring inheritance of friendly cat versus unfriendly

[Archimedes Plutonium]

Counting today:: I have 34 cats under my care and auspices. The parents of most of these cats were abandoned. And years ago I decided to take care of them rather than they starve to death in winter.

Then I decided to experiment with the cats to see if I can help remove CalciVirus.

Then I expanded into studying cat intelligence and cat inheritance. So far, I have found that if a friendly female gives birth to kittens sired by a friendly tomcat, that the kittens are all friendly. While a unfriendly female with unfriendly tomcat gives a litter of all unfriendly kittens.

Winter is upon us here in South Dakota with temperatures -17Celsius, and I am especially worried about my female cat named Goose. She has a meow sound more like a goose bird than a cat. I name all my cats by a specific behavior they display (Tree climber, Flirt, Queenie, Calm, Body Brush, Aloof, etc).

So I was worried in the past 2 days of where Goose was???? She had not shown up for dinner in the past 2 days considering especially the snow on the ground and -17degrees Celsius. 

And then today-- she shows up. And then I take a walk to the post box and find SCIENCE magazine 27 November 2025 cover picture be that of "HERDING CATS: Ancient DNA suggests later arrival for domestic cats in Europe".

I have not read the article yet, but will use any information in the article that relates to my own experimentation on cats.

I hope all 34 of my cats make it through the winter, but there are 2+4+4+1 = 11 kittens among the 34 that likely not all will survive. Probably because of CalciVirus.

And the calciVirus ends up making the females sterile.

AP

#434 AP cat science experiments-- helping them overcome CalciVirus//testing their intelligence//measuring inheritance of friendly cat versus unfriendly

[Archimedes Plutonium]

On Monday, December 1, 2025 at 8:06:03 PM UTC-6 Archimedes Plutonium wrote:

Counting today:: I have 34 cats under my care and auspices. The parents of most of these cats were abandoned. And years ago I decided to take care of them rather than they starve to death in winter.

Sadly, one of the Tabby kittens died since I last reported. So I am taking care of 33 cats now.

 

Then I decided to experiment with the cats to see if I can help remove CalciVirus.

Major Research in solving CalciVirus on whether Possums carry bacteria that kills the cat CalciVirus???

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The best way to kill viruses such as Calci is to find a bacteria that eats the Calci virus.

I lost that Tabby kitten to calci virus.

Through the years I noticed that 3 out of 5 groups of cats faired much better than the 2 other groups against Calci.

You know a cat has Calci virus if they have discharges from around the eyes. They lose complete appetite to eat, when eating can save them. They deteriorate more as they do not eat and days later they die.

So what I noticed is that I feed these 5 groups of cats, somewhat separated in distance on white plastic lids of 5 gallon buckets.

I noticed that possums often join in, especially after the grownup cats have finished. And a possum will clean up the lid plate completely as if it had been washed clean. I always know if a possum had fed.

I like possums around because they eat ticks.

So, well, of the 5 groups, the possums eat off the 3 groups and not the 2 groups. The Calci virus death of kittens is predominantly in the 2 groups. Few deaths in the 3 groups.

So I came recently to this Hypothesis very much worth investigating further. But will eventually need a scientific laboratory to come to any science conclusion.

Hypothesis:: The possum has a low body temperature and why it seems to be very disease resistant. Perhaps the possum also harbors bacteria that eat viruses, much like the bacteria found on teeth. Possums have massive teeth. I am thinking that a special bacteria on possums gets transferred to my plastic lids and when the possum cleans the lid so very well, leaves behind bacteria for which the next time the cats feed from the lid, pick up some of those bacteria, that then goes to eat the Calci virus.

Some years back I tried aspirin in some of the cat food to see if I can rid them of Calci, that was a flop.

But this latest Hypothesis, just maybe true.

What I am going to do is take one of those possum cleaned lids over to a group of cats that has a kitten trying to survive and see if she can reach adulthood from feeding from the possum lid. If that is successful, may lend more supporting evidence that I am onto something with this hypothesis.

AP, King of Science