Clouded Leopard Artificial Insemination, Take 2

Well, after taking her sweet time, our female cloudie Josie is finally in estrus once again. We've been eagerly awaiting this development as we plan to try artificial insemination once again. I chronicled our attempts last year here on the blog in gory detail (too gory for some, I was told, but check it out by looking under the "Breeding" category if you are interested!) I won't go into such great detail this time, but want to share the steps involved. The first step is evaluation of estrus. On Monday, Josie started exhibiting some of the signs. Tuesday I spent more time with her to see how strong estrus was. Here is a clip of me doing just that with explanation of what we're loooking for. (I know it looks like I'm mauling her, but she likes it "rough" for exhibiting estrus):

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After hanging out with Josie in her exercise yard for a while, I brought her in and put our male Raja out to gauge his reaction. When Josie is in estrus he exhibits much more exploratory behavior in the yard, sniffing around wherever she was. He also vocalizes a bunch and also does some marking. You can see (and hear!) all three behaviors here:



As I explained in last year's postings,we have to use AI in trying to breed our pair as they are no longer compatible and Raja would be quite aggressive with Josie. But since we have both cats here together we are perfectly situated to try AI. Tomorrow morning we will inject Josie with the hormone causing ovulation and have scheduled her procedure for Friday. Keep your fingers crossed and I'll keep you posted!