Vaccination in the Feline

Vaccination

Vaccination allows protection against a range of potentially lethal diseases that may infect your cat. It also allows the veterinary surgeon to examine your cat to assess his or her health and to advise you on maintaining a healthy pet.

Vaccination in cats is an essential part of healthy cat ownership.

Kitten Vaccination

We can start vaccinating your kittens from 9 weeks of age with a second vaccination three weeks later. We like all kittens to stay inside until two weeks after the second vaccination to allow a fully protective immunity to develop or longer if you do not have a secure garden. We strongly recommend the Fevaxyn Pentofel vaccine to give maximum levels of protection to your kitten. Details on all vaccine options are given below.

Nobivac Tricat

This vaccine, as the name suggests is against three diseases;

Herpes virus cat flu.
Calici virus cat flu.

Both 'flu' variants are common in Guernsey, causing severe, upper respiratory infections and both having the potential of 'latency'. This is where the virus stays in the cats systems for the rest of their lives, infecting their own kittens, neighbour's cats and suffering themselves from repeat bouts of flu or chronic gingivitis, sinusitis, conjunctivitis, etc...

Feline Panleucopaenia virus; An acute and often fatal gastroenteritis. Rare in Guernsey.

How to vaccinate with Nobivac Tricat against cat flu and enteritis

A primary injection.
A second injection three weeks later.

Immunisation is achieved one to two weeks after the second vaccination.

An annual booster vaccine is recommended.
In the kitten we start vaccination at 9 weeks of age.
Any age of adult cat can be vaccinated.

Nobivac FeLV vaccine

This vaccine is against feline leukaemia virus (FeLV), the disease which kills more cats than any other single, infectious organism. FeLV is transmitted by sexual intercourse and other body fluids such as blood and saliva. We suspect that fighting / biting is a prime cause of transmission. The feral tom cat is one of the principle carriers of the disease.

Blood testing for FeLV

Where we have a kitten from a FeLV blood test negaive and vaccinated mother cat we are happy to vaccinate your kitten. Where the kitten's mother is not vaccinated or where it is an older cat who has socialised with other cats in the area, we would advise that a blood test is taken and tested for FeLV virus. We would hope that your cat would be negative and then we would go ahead with vaccination. Blood testing takes 24 hours. If you have a kitten, please try and find out whether the mother was FeLV vaccinated.

How to vaccinate with Nobivac FeLV against leukaemia virus

A primary injection.
A second injection three weeks later.

Immunisation is achieved one to two weeks after the second vaccination

An annual booster vaccination is recommended.
In the kitten we start vaccination at 9 weeks of age.
Any age of adult cat can be vaccinated.
Nobivac Tricat and Nobicat FeLV vaccines can be given at the same time.

Fevaxyn Pentofel

A new, fully inactivated (all components are killed virus') vaccine, that combines all the benefits and viral components of Nobivac Tricat and FeLV together in a single injection. In addition it has an 'enhanced' benefit against feline calicivirus (flu) and protection against the disease Feline Chalmydia. Chlamydia is a relatively common contagious disease of cats which manifests as acute conjunctivitis with the cats developing very swollen and purulent eyes. It can develop into upper and lower respiratory tract infections with a high temperature.

The vaccine contains:

Feline Calici virus (flu), an additional new strain.
Feline Herpes virus (flu)
Feline Leukaemia virus (FeLV)
Feline Chlamydia (conjunctivitis)

We believe that this vaccine has certain benefits over our standard protocol and would advise that all kittens and cats starting a vaccination course are given this vaccine. High risk category cats should be upgraded to this vaccine. Please discuss it with your vet.

The same protocol applies to testing for Feline Leukaemia Virus as forNobivac FeLV

How to vaccinate with Fevaxyn Pentofel

A primary injection.
A second injection three weeks later.
Immunisation is achieved one to two weeks after the second vaccination
An annual booster vaccination is recommended.
In the kitten we start vaccination at 9 weeks of age.
Any age of adult cat can be vaccinated.