Maine Coon and Norwegian Forest cat information on births and litters

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In searching for some useful information about Maine Coons I bumped into a study about the birth of litters to Norwegian Forest cats and Maine Coon cats. This concerns the breeders of Maine Coons and Norwegian Forest Cats.

There's not much to tell but I'll pass on what I can. In this study there were among other breeders, eight Norwegian Forest cat breeders and five Maine Coon cat breeders. There were also seven Persian cat breeders. They were sent questionnaires.

Information about Maine Coons and Norwegian Forest cats concerning births and litters
Information about Maine Coons and Norwegian Forest cats concerning births and litters. Montage by MikeB based on images in the public domain.

They found that in Norwegian Forest cats the shorter the pregnancy length the larger the litter size. They also found that with this breed, kitten deaths between birth and weaning were on average at 14%. 

I understand that to mean that 14% of the newborn kitten died between birth and between being weaned (8-10 weeks old). I find this interesting as it provides us with an insight to the high death rate of newborn kittens in breeding catteries, if this is typical.

Stillborn kittens and the mortality of kittens increased with the size of the litter.

In Maine Coon cats and Persians, a total of 3% of births (parturitions) occurred with the use of a cesarean section. And, litters born using a cesarean section were larger than normal and, in the litters, there were a greater number of stillborn kittens and kitten mortality.

The scientists used questionnaires sent out to cat breeders in Italy. In all their survey concerned 128 breeding female cats (queens), 565 heats, 337 litters and 1424 kittens. The survey covered the period 1998-2012. There were 4.9 breeding females on average per cattery. A little more than 20% of the females were giving birth for the first time (primiparous).

Location: Italy

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