a horrible and very sad time

It is with great sadness and very heavy heart I write this. 

I'll start with sending you this, which I posted on Facebook at the time it happened as  I do not know if I'm able to write it again:

"My sweet, unique, fantastic, wonderful girl, my girl only, left me today. I am so sad :'( She was my favourite cat of all times, and I will forever miss her. My poor, poor Rajani :'( I cannot go into any details right now out of sadness, but she had a very rare condition with no name and ...she basically bled to death :'( :'( :'(

To put it short Rajani developed an intermuscular bleeding resulting in a HUGE lump on her thigh in late November. She had exploratory surgery to figure out what caused it. ... There were no signs of poor health in Rajani and nothing we could do but to wait and see. Both the vet and I thought the blood would absorbed back into the body eventually. She had a few drops of blood finding it's way out through the vaginal opening about 2 weeks later, but it stopped after 20 hours or so. Then Tuesday evening she started to bleed, a lot. It stopped bleeding so much after her treatment on Wednesday, but the hematology was worse on Friday than Wendesday and there were nothing more we could do for her :'( Red blood cell count was down from 2.7 to 1.9 (should be 5-10), haematocrit level was the same story, way too low. She simply didn't have enough erythrocytes left to transport oxygene around her body. A blood transfusion could have prolonged her life, maybe over the weekend or so, but not save her as we hadn't been able to stabilise her. Blood work and necropsy are in the process."

When the bloodwork came back, it was not good in regards of  the rest of my cats either. My dear Rajani turned out to (amongst other things) be FeLV positive. This did maybe not cause her condition, but is in addition to it.

Of course this meant I had to test all my other cats. And several of my cats are no longer with me :(

I will miss them all, but most of all my sweet, wonderful, unique Rajani. I cannot even look at a photo of her yet.

The breeding animals I lost are:

Forestgems Bonnie of Kimburu

Kimburu Ikapo

Umande of Kimburu

Trollspotting Beornwulf of Kimburu - FeLV status unknown, he died prior to Rajani's bloodwork returned. It might have been something else as he never got sick, just died suddenly. He was HCM tested free in January 2009.

and I did lose several neuters too, most of them were never used for breeding, and since they have nothing to do with my Bengal breeding program I will grieve them in peace.

This article about FeLV is fairly good and up to date: http://www.vet.cornell.edu/fhc/brochures/felv.html

The FeLV negative tested cats are:

Testet the 20th of January with SNAP test, Laboklin test sent inn on 4 of them, also negative results:

JungleJem DaVinci of Kimburu

WFB Salix caprea of Kimburu

Kimburu Meru

Kimburu Filfil Falconer

Kimburu Farioulo Fehling (he will be neutered and sold after re-testing)

Kimburu Nocturne sensation

WinsomeBG Helena ofTroya of Kimburu

SavannahNorway Eidundra of Kimburu, but she was positive on the SNAP test and is completely isolated from all other cats pending re-testing 6 weeks after the intitial test.

Tested cats the 25th of January 2010, all tests sent to Laboklin, all negative:

Kimburu Panlong

Kimburu Jajapur,

Spice Garlic of Kimburu (neuter),

Kimburu Riadha

Kimburu Kaalamoric

I still have 4 neuters, or soon to be neuters, to test. They are completely isolated from all other cats, 3 of them in my stud building. All my studs are currently housed indoors and well separated from eachother. After discussing matters with my veterinary this group of cats will only be tested after the 6 weeks have past and will only be tested once.

Cats to be tested: 
Kimburu Nectar de feu (neuter)

Kimburu Peppercorn (will be spayed if neg)

Kimburu Ibungu (will be neutered if neg)

Kimburu X-Tego (neuter)

So where did this dreaful virus come from? How did it enter my home?

I do not know, and I will never know. Based on which cats were positive I have 2 suspects, and they both might be to blame. That I actually do have two different sources. But I will not reveil their names here, I will not point any fingers as it is just my guessing.

After several and long talks with many breeders and other friends. All of them being supportive. I have decided to continue to breed Bengals, and Bengals only. I will no longer breed Sokokes, but might have one more litter. I will probably never breed my Savannah if she is still neg in 6 weeks and as such could be a breeding animal.

It goes without saying though that I will not breed, show, buy or sell any cat, kitten or neuter untill I their 2nd tests are back and even then I need more time to go by without any cats getting sick. 

My vet,  the vets he has spoken to with more expertise in this disease, Laboklin and everybody else with any professional training in handling FeLV says that my now neg. tested cats are safe. I am not comfortable enough with that answer, so I will re-test them all about 6 weeks after their initial test since it takes 4-6 weeks after first contact for the virus to show up in the bloodwork tests, if they get the disease.

All breeders I've sold a cat to, or bought one from, has been notified the 20th of January. The rest of you, including kitten buyers, are notified now as I needed to know a bit more before I told everybody about this horrible ordeal. I am glad I waited as I felt doomed at first. Now it seems like it has been limited to fewer cats. And luckily no parents of my 2009 kittens are postive so all the kittens should be safe.

If anybody has dealt with this disease and have any pointers as to what I should do, please do share.

I would also like to know that if you HAVE FeLV tested any cat that came from me, no matter how long ago, I would love to know as it might help me in knowing how long the virus has been here. But my guess is that it must be a short time taken into consideration which cats have been affected.

What I have done so far is to disinfect all rooms that cats live in and everything in it. I've used hydrogen peroxide AND Virkon in two different rounds, then rested the rooms for several days (and my cats were in cages those days). The FeLV virus is said to die by itelf in the environment within 24 hours.

My cats are now in groups of maximum 4, most are only 2. And no untested cats are with the negative tested ones. My females will be given the birth control pills for a few months as I will not breed them right now and spring is comming up soon. However I have to make sure they aren't pregnant first, as that is a possibillity with a couple of them due to them living with the stud. 

Last a not about how I am doing since several have asked me that questions. Thank you for your concern and for caring! It is truly appreciated!

I was of course feeling very sad and had a lot of negative thoughts when this first happened. But now things are going much better and I do eat and sleep as normal again. And I have started to think about the future. It is all with great support and help from those of my friends who have known about this and spoken to me. So a big great THANK YOU!!!! to all of you, you know who you are.