Maine Coon cat has a shorter lifespan than the Birman and the Norwegian Forest Cat

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I'm able to access the full report by a group of scientists who looked at the mortality of life-insured Swedish cats both non-purebred and purebred. They compared the mortality rate for two periods of time, one more recent than the other (1999-2002 compared to 2003-2006).

They published a chart showing the percentage of cats who died by the age of five, by the age of 7.5 years, by the age of 10 years and by the age of 12.5 years.


Maine Coon


In the earlier period, 41% of Maine Coon cats survived until 12.5 years of age and beyond. In the second more recent period, 54% of Maine Coon cats survived until 12.5 years of age. The increased lifespan is probably due to an increase in taking out an insurance premium (usually expensive).

Birman


For the Birman the percentages were 58% and 68% respectively. In other words, over the more recent period, 68% of Birman cats lived to 12.5 years of age and beyond, which as you can see is 14% more cats than for the Maine Coon. A substantial improvement. In an earlier article I discovered that the Birman cat is a low risk for developing feline diabetes. This may be a factor as obesity can cause diabetes and there is a domestic cat obesity epidemic. 

A second factor would be the obvious one namely that a significant percentage of Maine Coon cats inherit hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) which can be a killer and it can start quite young in life, as early as four months of age.

Norwegian Forest cat


The percentages for the Norwegian Forest cat were 51% and 62% respectively using the same criteria. This is better than the Maine Coon and slightly worse than the Birman in terms of longevity.

Comment: every time I do research on the longevity of the Maine Coon cat I always come up with a weakness which is the one mentioned above namely HCM. There are other inherited illnesses acquired by this cat breed which can undermine lifespan but of that group of congenital illnesses suffered by this cat breed, HCM has the biggest impact on lifespan.

Study


Mortality of Life-Insured Swedish Cats during 1999–2006: Age, Breed, Sex, and Diagnosis. Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1939-1676.2009.0396.x

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Please excuse the occasional typo due to preparing these articles at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I don't have a proof reader.
Location: Sweden

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