X-ray of Obelix at the age of 7 weeks

Normal thorax

Obelix was born on a cool and rainy day. As we x-ray all our pregnant cats one week before the due date, we knew that we were expecting a single kitten. Birth took place without any problems and started at 1 p.m. with smeary discharge. At 6.30 p.m. her water broke and at 7.24 p.m. Obelix was born head first. With 122g his birth weight was quite normal. Lovingly Melody did take care of her son, cleaned him and he crawled instantly to the milk bar where he got the hang of it immediately. The first couple of days passed without any problems. Obelix gained weight between 18 to 20 g per day.

From the 6th day on suddenly the gain of weight reduced to 4 to 10 g. Melody did leave her kitten alone and would lie in front of the birthing box instead. Most of the time she even wanted to leave the bedroom. We assumed that being a clucking mum she was not filled out with just one kitten. We tried to supplement-feed him. But Obelix did neither drink the milk nor was he hungry. Breeder colleagues would calm me down as ups and downs of the weight are not unusual. As long as he still gains weight everything would be fine. With 9 days he opened his eyes and responded to my voice. He moved little and slept a lot which is normal for a kitten. Being single kitten he did not have to fight for his place with Mama. Everything was available for him at any time. So it took almost three weeks before he tried to scramble on his feet. We were not surprise that with is huge belly he had trouble to move forward.

With 1 ½ weeks one can see clearly that his right foreleg stretches away. He is unable to hold it underneath his body.

However the visit of a breeder colleague confirmed my suspicion: Obelix has a flat-chest! So far he acts and behaves quite normally. Due to the white markings on his face his nose is not pigmented. So the pink colour of his nose is a good indicator regarding a possible shortness of breath. Never did it change from its healthy rose nor did he ever switch to oral breathing so far.

Paw turned outwards and very wide chest

9 ½ weeks the flat chest can be recognised quite well. 

At the age of 7 weeks he was shown at the university hospital in Zurich. Unfortunately the x-ray showed a massive flat-chest but luckily without any damage to his heart and lungs even though there is only very little space between spine and breastbone. There is no explanation why he is still alive and why he shows no symptoms apart from the faster breathing. It is impossible to prognose as flat-chested kittens that are alive are hardly ever seen in the hospital. Most of them die before or are not shown from the breeders or just disappear anywhere. They have no experience operating flat-chested kitten, in Zurich none has been operated so far. The surgeons could show me only two documentations of operations abroad that have succeeded but they were made on older cats. The breastbone would be connected to an external metal plate with wire and the continuous pull that would have to be adjusted regularly would draw the breastbone in the correct position. This procedure would take at least 4 months. However it is impossible to pre-estimate the postoperative complications such as infection under the metal plate due to the re-growth of hair and presumably this procedure must be very painful for the cat and the quality of life very limited. On this account together with the two surgeons we decided not to operate on him.

I searched on the internet about information on flat-chested kitten but apart from the known pages of:

http://www.burmesen.com/chester0.htm and http://www.pawpeds.com/pawacademy/health/flatchest/index_de.html

unfortunately I did not find a lot of information.

So far the cause for this abnormality has not yet been discovered thoroughly. On the one hand there may be a genetic disposition. But also there are repeatedly FCK kittens from repeat matings. One further possibility is that the cat falls ill during pregnancy and has to receive medical treatment.

Melody had two litters with two different male cats without any abnormalities and in between a single kitten with umbilical hernia (the visceral organs were outside the abdominal wall) that did not survive. During the 6^th week of her pregnancy with Obelix she had a severe allergic reaction on an insect bite and had to be treated with antibiotics for more than 48 hours and also with medication against allergic reaction. This may be the reason for the abnormality of Obelix but we cannot say so for sure. Fact is that 15 weeks after his birth Melody had another litter of 4 healthy kittens that were born within one hour.

Above all there are no documentations of cats that survived for a longer time. After informing through the breeders register several people that were confronted with this flat-chest syndrome did get in contact with me to exchange experiences. Apparently there are cats with the FCK-Syndrome that are older than two years. Unfortunately there are no x-ray pictures available to sta

te the degree of flat-chestedness and the current state of health. 

I will document the further development of Obelix on my Homepage and plan to take a second x-ray at the age of 6 months.

It is extremely painful to know that there is nothing we can really do for him and that presumably he will not stay with us for a very long time. But when we see him rampaging, running up und down the stairs, fighting with his taller playfellow Hudson and striking back when the other one is rough shows us that we did make the right decision. His state of health is still unchanged and there are no signs of any shortage of breath.

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diary of Obelix