Can a cat with FHV live with other cats? Once a cat is infected with feline herpesvirus (FHV-1), the virus stays in the body for life. Even after recovery, the virus remains dormant and can reactivate during times of stress or illness. Queens that carry herpesvirus often experience recurring flare-ups, which can lead to ongoing respiratory symptoms and may impact reproductive health. Feline herpes is a lifelong condition, and while symptoms can be managed, the virus itself is never fully eliminated.

Is Feline Herpesvirus Contagious to Other Cats

Is it safe for FIV positive cats to live with other cats? The biggest issue in catteries is when new breeding genetics that are carriers introduce the wild feline herpesvirus to our unvaccinated and unprotected cats. Feline herpesvirus is contagious to other cats. If the herd immunity is low and herpes is introduced into the cattery with a carrier male or queen, wild herpes virus is then established in your adults and goes through the cattery. At that point, we have to manage herpes in cats back out of our genetically superior queens.

Feline Herpesvirus During Pregnancy

Feline herpesvirus, also known as Feline Viral Rhinotracheitis, will resurface when the cat is stressed since stress causes a lower immune fight. Giving birth is a major stress to the queen, that’s why herpes can and does complicate late pregnancy.

When feline herpes is active, a queen will either abort late term, give birth to abnormal or sick kittens, or pass rhinotracheitis to her kittens after birth, causing a lifelong issue. In late gestation, queens can and do abort with herpes. Kittens born to a mom with herpes may be born early or sick. The secret is managing carrier moms so she does not expose her kittens to wild herpes flare-ups.

Can a Pregnant Cat Have L-lysine?

Rescues that specialize in pregnant cats will assume queens are herpes positive and manage pregnant queens through pregnancy and nursing. Use L-lysine during the pregnancy to get kittens on the ground and raised healthy. L-lysine may help keep the virus in check, maintains a safe pregnancy and prevents the kitten from being exposed to the virus until herpes immunity from vaccination is established.

Pregnant Cat With Feline Herpesvirus

If you have a pregnant queen who is a carrier, follow these steps to manage herpesvirus out of your cattery:

• Get mom’s immunity up through vaccination. Building colostrum immunity helps keep her kittens healthy to weaning. Vaccine immunity also keeps the virus in check and helps keep it in remission. Do NOT vaccinate a pregnant queen. Use Revival’s Vaccine Finder to help select the best vaccine for your cats.
• Put mom on L-lysine throughout her pregnancy. L-lysine may help keep herpes in check, even though it hasn’t been removed from the cat.
• At four weeks of age, put the kittens on L-lysine until the kittens’ vaccine immunity is up.
• Once the kitten is vaccinated for herpes effectively and is not a carrier, we replace the herpes carrier queen with her daughter, who is not a carrier, and retire the mom. Replacing with herpes-free daughters maintains our genetic line while establishing herpes-free queens.

Keeping breeding cat’s vaccines for all respiratory infections up to date, being careful in selecting new cats to bring in, and quarantining new introductions until we can vaccinate and evaluate them all is part of our biosecurity plan. Our long term plan should be, if we don’t bring it in, we don’t have to get it back out! If you have a pregnant cat with feline herpesvirus or other cat health questions, call us at 800.786.4751.