Summary

H. Bostedt, 2005. Aspects of ultrasonic diagnostics of pregnancy in cats depending on the course of reproductive cycle. Bulg. J. Vet. Med., 8, No 4, 233238. The aim of the present study was to follow up the potential of routine ultrasonographic diagnostics of pregnancy in cats depending on the course of oestrus and the mating. The experiments were per-formed on 22 cats and the data were collected from a total of 31 oestral cycles and 26 confirmed pregnancies. Pregnancy was detected using transabdominal ultrasonography with an Aloca-SSD 500 equipment and a linear 5 MHz probe. Depending on the reproductive cycle, the animals were divided into 2 groups. The first group included 17 cats with diagnosed pregnancy by the 25th day of the be-ginning of the oestrus. The second group included 5 cats where the diagnosis pregnancy was preceded by 2 oestruses. Our studies indicated that the course of the oestrus influenced considerably the preci-sion of ultrasonographic diagnostics of pregnancy in cats. In 92.3 % of all cases, the first observed copulation could be accepted as the beginning of pregnancy, in 88.4 %- the first mating during the last observed oestrus. In 8 % of cases, the time interval between the beginning of gestation and the last mating was shorter compared to the period from the first mating to fertilization. Key words: cat, oestrus, pregnancy, ultrasonograph