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Quite often, especially in young queens, a low grade uterine infection can cause birth defects in a litter. The infection is very mild and the queen does not seem affected whatsoever. Two things can happen:
1. You get a litter with defects, some multiple such as clefts, spina bifida, flat chests. If you have a litter such as this, at her next mating give her a three week course of synulox starting two days prior to going to stud. Uterine walls are quite hardy and you need a three week course for the drugs to do the trick. Queens can pick up uterine infections from the stud's penis. To put it bluntly, sometimes he pokes the wrong hole first and then finds the right one. Result germs flow through with the sperm.
2. The kittens seem healthy initially but gradually fade away, sometimes showing symptoms such as green goop in the eyes. They can pick up an infection via the umbilical cord from the mother's vaginal passage. What I do is give all queens a course of synulox for her last seven days of pregnancy. This will clear any vaginal infections. I also clean the kittens cut umbilical cord with a dilute solution of Hibiscrub.
Throughout, give probiotics to your girls if you do not already do this.
If you do have a virgin queen produce her first litter with defects and you follow through routine one at her next mate, if she produces another litter with defects, try her next time with a different stud. Sometimes, particular two sets of genes just dont gel.
The rule of thumb is is you have a queen who is prone to throwing defective kittens, do not breed from siblings or offspring.
Regards
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