6441 Ann. For. Res. 65(1): 6441-6452, 2022 ISSN: 18448135, 20652445 ANNALS OF FOREST RESEARCH DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7410248 © ICAS 2022 HISTOLOGICAL AND HISTOCHEMICAL STUDY OF STOMACH IN NEONATAL CATS Alaa N. Salih 1 *, Luay O. Hamza 2 1, 2 Department of Anatomy and Histology, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq Emails: alaanaji@uowasit.edu.iq 1 , luay.o@covm.uobaghdad.edu.iq 2 * Corresponding author Abstract The present investigation was done to clarify the histological and histochemical characteristics features of the stomach in neonatal cats. Pregnant queens in good health condition will be collected by hunting and cage in the animal house till their delivery to obtain six kittens, at one week of age the kittens were separated from their queens and euthanized by intra-cardiac injection of an overdose of sodium pentobarbital. Tissue samples were undergoing routine histological techniques and stained to reveal histological details. The kitten's stomach is lined by simple columnar epithelium without goblet cells. The stomach pits in the cardiac area were deep and bounded by the thick band of stratum compactum. The fundic gastric pits were shorter than cardiac and pyloric gastric pits, the pyloric gastric pits were longer than cardiac pits. The gastric glands had large numbers of pyramidal oxyntic cells, chief cells, and gastric cells. The cardiac glands appear as simple branched tubular, the fundic glands and pyloric glands are simple tubular glands. Stomach mucosa in kitten cats after staining with alcian blue and PAS combine the epithelial cells and neck mucous cells of gastric crypts had neutral mucopolysaccharides reaction. The other parts of the gastric glands showed moderate neutral mucin reaction because of the acidic secretion of parietal cells. We conclude that the general histological features in neonatal cats are not different in structure from other neonatal carnivores. Keywords: Felis catus, sodium pentobarbital, stratum compactum, cardiac glands Introduction Domestic cats (Felis catus) are part of the genus Felis, which is a group of small cats containing about seven species, the cat (Felis catus) is a domestic species of small carnivorous animal (Reeder and Wilson, 2005). The digestive system was play a vital role in food processing and absorption (Hill et al., 2008). In carnivores, the digestive tract appeared shorter in comparison to the herbivore's digestive tract due to the gastrointestinal adaptation to different diets and feeding habits (Barone, 1996; Dyce and Wensing, 2010). The stomach in carnivorous animals was classified as a simple monolocular stomach with a four-layered structure (Bacha and Wood, 1990). There were specific lamina subglandularis in carnivorous stomach walls which presences in