If the mother was only scratched ( not bitten) and if the attach provoked ( she tried to catch the cat, feed it bath it etc) THERE IS A VERY VERY LOW RISK OF RABIES. As long as the cat is in custody there is no need to do anything else at this point but to wait and see if the cat gets sick. We live in a very rural area by most people's defination and I treat/manage bites from dogs, cats, bats, horses, squirrels. I once sheck with the state vet about a man who was bitten by a stray cat that they were trying to remove from a wharehouse. Unfortunately they were not able to capture the cat. The state vet told me you don't have to , even if you see the cat two days later and it is acting natural that alone is enough evidence that the cat is OK that the shots are not needed. If by chance the test is positive for the cat I would call a univerisity of Veteranry medicine to get more info about the transmission of rabies. Iowa State University in Ames is the one I would use. As I understand it the rabies virus must be usually passed through the blood stream or by eating infected brains of deceased animals. That is why skunks are the biggest natural resivour of rabies, they eat carrion of other infected dead animals. Bite wounds are infectious because the virus is in the saliva and the skin is broken. A BITE would closed to the brain is more dangerous than a bite on the arm and the bite on the leg is *better*. Better because the virus need to travel along the nerve fibers to the brain to damage the one who was bit. A scratch only is usually considered a low risk wound. Alson you didn't mention if the cat was vaccinated. Again if it was know to have been vaccinated then this too would be a low risk wound. Most veterinarians are actively vaccinated against rabies because of jub expsosure. I don't know what the package insert says about using this in the BF mother but this is another story. . Jon Ahrendsen, MD, FAAFP, LLLI Medical Associate Phone 515-532-2836 215 13th Ave. SW FAX 515-532-2523 Clarion, IA 50525 Email [log in to unmask] .