TARASCANI MAINE COONS

You have just seen the cat of your dreams and you have not only got to have one but you want to start breeding. How do you go about it?

A lot of consideration must go in to the decision to start breeding any animal. First, do you have the time, room and money to devote to your hobby? Cat breeding takes up a lot of time. Mother Nature has no respect for timetables and you can guarantee that if something can happen at an inconvenient time for you it will. You can forget about planning in advance, you can bet that you will have to take your queen to stud because she has started calling and has to be mated this time or you have a litter due to arrive and cannot go out as you had arranged.

Do you have a quiet room for your queen to kitten in peace and raise her family before introducing them to the stress of everyday family life? Some queens will desert their litters if disturbed by children, dogs and/or strangers poking at their kittens. Can the kittens run around your home safely or are they in danger of injury? It is your responsibility to ensure their safety.

Can you afford to cover veterinary expenses in the event of an emergency? Not every pregnancy goes to plan and tragedies can occur leaving you with a large vet bill and, sometimes, no cat. If you want to start breeding in the hope of making lots of money you may as well give up before you begin. There is the cost of buying a good breeding queen, feeding and looking after her until she is old enough to be mated, stud fees, vet’s fees (including inoculations and blood testing if she is going to someone else’s stud), travelling expenses and this is all before she gets pregnant! After that you will have to pay for extra food for her and then the kittens until they are at least twelve weeks old and ready to leave, more vet’s bills (for inoculating the kittens at nine and twelve weeks against flu and enteritis and optional leukaemia), registration of the kittens with whichever organisation you choose (G.C.C.F. or C.A. or both), advertising (how else will you sell your kittens?), paperwork (pedigrees, sales and deposit slips, sale agreement, diet sheets, insurance – all cost time and money to produce), purchase of suitable kittening equipment (box, pen, heating etc). Taking all this into consideration you will soon see that it will take a long time to recoup your initial expenditure. If you have one queen who will give you a small litter of only one or two kittens once a year (the G.C.C.F. recommends you only breed from a queen once a year) you will never start to see any return on your investment. Plus, if you decide you want to show your cat there will be the added expenses for show entry, travelling etc. etc. This is why I previously called breeding a hobby and one that should only be taken up by the truly dedicated. It is a sad fact that over sixty per cent of new cat breeders give up before their second year, as they were not prepared for either the expense or the inconvenience to their home life that breeding can bring with it.

What do you know about the breed? Do you know the Standard of Points? What are the faults to look out for and does the breed have any genetic/health problems that you do not want to pass on to the next generation? A lot of this can be learned by going to shows ‘to get your eye in’, reading books and finding a good breeder and asking questions. A working knowledge of genetics is also handy; you need to have a good idea of what colour kittens you will get from mating your queen to a certain stud.

Lastly (and this is the big question!) are you prepared for the stress and worry of kittening? Will you panic if the smallest thing goes wrong or can you stay calm and in control? Most of the time everything goes perfectly and you only have to be there for her and hold her paw and encourage her. After a few hours’ effort she is proudly mothering a brood of little “squeakers” while you are a nervous wreck wondering if it is worth going back to bed at four in the morning! Sometimes she may need a little help, especially if it is a big kitten and gets stuck halfway out. Even more rare are the occasions when after lots of effort there is no result (this can happen even after some of the kittens have already arrived) and you must make an emergency trip to the vet.

It must also be recognised that some queens, however good their looks and pedigree, will never make good breeding stock. Some may have repeated abortions, malformed or weak kittens, stillbirths or need caesareans every time. If this happens you must realise that the welfare of the cat comes first, have her speyed, put it down to experience and carry on (this is the time that most people give up).

So far I have concentrated on the pitfalls of breeding. I am sorry if my playing ‘Devil’s Advocate’ has put you off becoming a breeder, but if you still want the pleasure of a cat you can purchase a good, pet quality kitten, neuter it and have lots of fun without the worry. If you are still keen let’s continue on to the next step.

It will take time to find a kitten good enough to become a breeding queen. Go to shows and talk to various breeders, contact Breed Clubs (not all breeders go to shows!), look in cat magazines (Cat World, Your Cat, All About Cats) and get names and numbers and talk to them. Find someone who is willing to give help and advice, you will find them more cooperative if you can show them you have done your homework on their breed.

Choose which colours you want to produce. Some breeds come only in one colour but Maine Coons can have rainbow litters. Matings between certain colours give a limited number of possible colour permutations whereas other combinations will give over a dozen possibilities. This is where your knowledge of genetics will start to pay off.

When offered a prospective kitten go and see her with her litter. Have a look at the parents (or at least a photo of dad if he is someone else’s stud). It is very difficult to assess very young kittens as they change so much in the first eight to ten weeks, so beware of breeders advertising very young or even unborn kittens as show/breeding cats. After this it is easier to see how a profile is developing and if everything else is going to plan. Remember that nose bumps only get worse, straight profiles don’t curve, weak chins stay weak, tail kinks won’t go away and colour faults don’t change! This is also good advice when assessing your own kittens, especially if someone asks you for a potential show/breeding cat; after all it is your good name and reputation on the line!

At last you have found your kitten; she is the colour, type and pedigree you want so what do you do now? First make sure she will be registered on the Active Register, check with the breeder if they have any conditions of sale (some do, although this is more common with stud cats), if she is at least twelve weeks old, inoculated and ready to go and you are prepared at home then buy her. If she is too young to leave yet put a deposit on her and come back when she is ready.

The life of a breeding queen is very restricted. Due to the risk of contracting viruses (leukaemia, infectious peritonitis, feline aids, infectious anaemia) she must not be allowed to roam free. She will have to have blood tests before going to stud and if she proves positive for any of these she will not be accepted by the stud’s owner who will insist on seeing the test results. You must therefore be prepared to give her lots of time and keep her entertained, she will repay this attention with affection and you will build up a trust and rapport, which will stand in good stead later on when kittening.

While your girl is growing up you should be looking around for a prospective mate for her. There are two types of stud cat, private/limited studs whose services are restricted to the owner or certain others under strict conditions and the public stud whose owner will accept outside queens, subject to blood and health testing. It must be noted that there are very few Maine Coon public studs and they can be very busy. If possible, it is best to have a choice of two or three suitable boys in case your first option is busy at the time your queen is calling. After that it is all down to fate and Mother Nature!

Nine weeks and two days after her tryst with the boy of your dreams you should both be fussing over a litter of the most beautiful kittens in the world and you are a real breeder! Now you realise how easy things can be you will be thinking of maybe getting another girl or keeping a daughter from this mating or how about getting your own stud cat? But that is another story!