HCM in Cats

[Bekki]

I think I'm going to start referring to savannah cat chat is "the think tank" because I just kind of envision everyone sitting around a long table debating and reasoning so many different topics.


"Those who wander aren't always lost"

 

[Brigitte Cowell]

Hmm you're right I completely forgot the use of the outcross I've been looking at sbts so long that must have slipped my mind (face palm ).some very good points.


"Those who wander aren't always lost"

Although many of us are mainly using SBTs now... those outcrosses are back there still, it just gets harder to find them out when they fall off the 5 gen pedigrees ;-)

 

[Michaela]

What is the TICA code on pedigree for the serval ?

I am not sure what F generation my Baby is with all the back breeding..

The breeder back breeds to serval for hight % and fertility

Are other breeders back breeding to serval for SV make fertility and high percent serval ??




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Michaela L

 

[Brigitte Cowell]

OOS is the TICA code for another species, so is the code given to the Serval (as well as to the Jungle Cat or ALC).

Officially, your cat is an F4... going on the registration codes in his pedigree. You will not find OOS in your cat's pedigree as the cats were registered in an "interesting" point in the breed's history when the moratorium on hybrids was lifted by TICA and some cats were registered as Savannahs whose parents and grandparents etc were not registered. This has added to the suspicion and drama surrounding that cattery's "high percentage" cats as the Servals are not disclosed in the pedigrees, btw.

There are a handful of breeders over the years that have attempted "high percentage" programs where they wanted to breed F1s back to Servals to create higher percentage F1s. I don't think that I know of another cattery that made it further than 87.5% F1. And that only a litter or two before they stopped, I am not sure of the reason. Most breeders have found it hard to get beyond 75% and even getting to there is a challenge. Hence no other breeder has been able to test that theory that if you get high enough percentage in a male F1 then you achieve male fertility. It seems logical in theory, but without anyone having documented it properly, it remains very controversial. Unfortunately the high % males in the program your cat comes from were not documented by parentage DNA back to a domestic cat to prove that they are not Servals. Nobody else knew of them along the way hence it is just the word of that one breeder that they are indeed High Percentage F1s and F2s.... and hence the reason there has been so much drama and debate about them.

 

[Bekki]

I never understood the claim of high percentage serval in cats. I thought a f1-f3 were all just high percentage. this all makes a lot more sense. Wow that would be pretty great I'd they could make it happen .


"Those who wander aren't always lost"

 

[Michaela]

The mom is claimed high percent F3 and dad F2 odd percent and my SV is f 4 or f3 but I misunderstood f 2 b and posted pictures to F 2 post
Now that I understand better I can comprehend the confusion.

He is still so special and growing more like a F 2 at 10 mo and 16 lb weight..


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Michaela L

 

[Brigitte Cowell]

From the pedigree you posted, the dam is F3 and sire is F5, hence you have an F4. I was merely explaining why you would not find any Serval code in the pedigree...

 

[Brigitte Cowell]

I never understood the claim of high percentage serval in cats. I thought a f1-f3 were all just high percentage. this all makes a lot more sense. Wow that would be pretty great I'd they could make it happen .


"Those who wander aren't always lost"

It depends on what you define as "high percentage"... mostly we use the term for a cat that is much higher in Serval % than you would expect for that generation. So when you have an F1 whose mother is an F2 then it is theoretically 62.5% which is substantially higher than the average 50%. So you might call that a HP F1.

In the case of my Katie (a cat I used to own from a "high percentage program") she was registered as A3S which means F3 but her calculated Serval % was 46% so more like an F1...so she was referred to as a HP F3 for that reason.

 

[Bekki]

this finally makes a lot of sense. Thank you Bridgette!


"Those who wander aren't always lost"

 

[Patti]

I had a friend tell me that they had always wanted a savannah cat but decided against it because a vet tech friend of hers said they were more prone to hcm because of over breeding. I had been doing research on what causes this and I would think Savannah's would be one of the least likely breeds to have hcm. as long as you go through a reputable breeder who you know isn't inbreeding their cats. this isn't common practice am I correct here? Why do they say bengals are more prone? As I have seen bengals bred in f1 and on. could someone help clarify?


"Those who wander aren't always lost"

LOL, it seem a little absurd to think of the Savannah as being overbred since it is such a new breed, and we have only been breeding SV x SV for maybe the past 6-7 years. There have been no studies that I am aware of to evaluate the incidence of HCM in Savannahs but I don't believe that it is found in our breed any more than any other breed that is not prone to it (e.g., Bengals, Maine Coons, etc.). However, in the early days Bengal was used heavily in the development of Savannahs so perhaps the perception of it being more prevalent is there because of its history...