mating with close relatives?
Grawun
My daughter works in a building out in a rural area. A mother cat and her
kittens live in a space under the building. The employees feed them. Some
of the employees believe that this years kittens were sired by a son from
a previous litter. Others are horrified at this idea. Does this happen?
Joyce
Jshartwell
In article <4rqpuj$c...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, gra...@aol.com (Grawun)
writes:
>Subject: mating with close relatives?
>From: gra...@aol.com (Grawun)
>Date: 8 Jul 1996 07:03:47 -0400
Cats make no distinction between grown up offspring as suitors and
non-related suitors.
Sometimes breeders use mother-son/father-daughter/sibling-sibling matings
to improve type or reinforce particular traits for the breed they are
working with. However, the breeders are careful that mating close
relatives does not reinforce any negative traits or weaknesses due to
'doubling up' of genes and a small gene pool. To counteract this, most
breeders also mate cats to those from other bloodlines from time to time.
When uncontrolled, such matings (termed inbreeding) can lead to all manner
of genetic defects due to a limited gene pool. Inbreeding can lead to
structural defects (dwarfism), passing on of undesirable mutations
(visible or internal), reduced immunity to disease, infertility and a host
of other inheritable traits. Ultimately inbred cats may become homozygous
(true-breeding) for certain traits which may not necessarily be desirable.
To prevent the adverse effects of inbreeding it would be a wise idea to
have the cat trapped and spayed (and the kittens neutered). Maybe the
employees would contribute towards this cost, especially if it was pointed
out that the cats would be healthier, happier and would probably be even
better mousers if they didn't take time off for family business.
I was once interviewing a family who wanted to adopt two kittens. I
quote: 'If we take a litter-brother and litter-sister we wouldn't need to
worry about neutering would we - after all they wouldn't mate with each
other would they?' They were shocked to find out that cats do not have
the same incest taboo as humans!
Sarah
Ray
gra...@aol.com (Grawun) wrote:
>My daughter works in a building out in a rural area. A mother cat and her
>kittens live in a space under the building. The employees feed them. Some
>of the employees believe that this years kittens were sired by a son from
>a previous litter. Others are horrified at this idea. Does this happen?
>Joyce
Certainly does!
Ray
Gwen Orel
Ray (gir...@mail.island.net) wrote:
: gra...@aol.com (Grawun) wrote:
: Certainly does!
: Ray
And it's nothing to be horrified at. Cat families function very differently
from human ones, and the connotations are not at all what they would be in a
human family!
Gwen
David Swanson
>My daughter works in a building out in a rural area. A mother cat and her
>kittens live in a space under the building. The employees feed them. Some
>of the employees believe that this years kittens were sired by a son from
>a previous litter. Others are horrified at this idea. Does this happen?
>Joyce
>
mate with several males - the kittens in a litter will frequently ALL have
different fathers. This seems to ensure genetic diversity in the wild.
I care for the feral cats in my neighborhood and they tend to pair up.
Brother and sister kittens will bond for life and mate, their kittens will
pair up and mate, etc, BUT the female always seems to slip in another male
or two on the side as I notice kittnes from 2 chocolate brown mates might
have an orange tabby or a siamese or...
Get someone to borrow a trap and get the females (minimum) altered. Many
humane societys will do this for free and you won't have an ever expanding
pool of strays!
Hilda