Hi everyone,
I have a half Bengal cat and for a breed development and welfare presentation, we have to talk about carried disorders within our breed. I have discovered that they inherit a lot of different eye disorders. Is there a specific reason for this? Is it because of the specific traits they're bred for?
Any help will be appreciated!
Thank you

I honestly have never heard that bengals have more eye disorders than your regular cat! I don't know that anyone on here specializes on the bengal gene and medical issues. Retinal atrophy and cataracts can be found in all breeds of cats.

Quasar had entropion in both his eyes as a kitten. The left was more pronounced than the right. As he aged, it disappeared. My vet said it was "not rare" and that surgery was rarely necessary to correct it.
I don't know if it isn't rare in all cats or Bengals in particular but it is prevalent within certain lines.

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~ Kyenta

Unfortunately, I have had to do a lot of reading on this lately as well as I suspect an eye issue with my bengal ... They are prone to a novel version of Progressive Retinal Atrophy, cataracts and several other eye disorders.

It doesn't seem to be a result of breeding for a specific trait, rather, it appears to have developed due to breeding within the limited gene pool of the breed itself. Inbreeding, line-breeding and selective breeding have led to these issues ... Unfortunately, in the cases of most of these issues, there was no test to determine if a cat carried a defective gene and defective gene carriers were asymptomatic. It wasn't until litters were born with issues that people realized there was a genetic component.

UCDavis has only recently come out with a test that is meant to identify animals that possess faulty genes that result in kittens being affected with PRA.

https://www.vgl.ucdavis.edu/services/cat/BengalPRA.php