Buying a kitten from a breeder.
How to choose the right breeder or cattery, especially when it comes to acquiring Maine Coon cats? To do this, you need to follow the general rules that are uniform for choosing any cattery.
First of all, let’s define the terminology. Many people believe that a cattery and a shelter for stray cats are the same thing. But in fact, the differences between them are very significant.
A shelter for cats is an object of a social nature, and a cattery is a commercial one. Homeless animals live in the shelter, as a rule, mongrel. Most often, you can take a cat from a shelter for free or for symbolic money.
The cattery, unlike the shelter, specializes in breeding animals, and not simple, but exclusively pedigreed. Even a single person can act as a cattery – a breeder, concurrently — the owner of one or two or three cats with a good pedigree. It is he who takes care of the exceptional purity of the breed and the health of the feline offspring.
How to choose the right cattery Maine Coon?
- Ideally, the breeder should have an appropriate professional education
related to veterinary medicine, biology or zoology. Of course, there are
enthusiasts who love animals so much that they know more without education
than some specialists. But this is the exception rather than the rule. - 2. Pay attention to work experience: how many years has the cattery existed, how long has the breeder been breeding the Maine Coon breed, what are his successes in this field, whether he participates in exhibitions, whether there are reviews about him on the Internet.
- The openness and attentiveness of the breeder to customers is no less
important than his professional qualifications. The owner of the kennel
should easily answer all your questions concerning the breed, its features
and standards, the care of a four-legged friend and the subtleties of its
maintenance. - In a professional kennel, together with a kitten, you must be given its
pedigree, documents confirming the purity of the breed, vaccination
certificates, recommendations for care and maintenance. - The responsible breeder is attentive to customers, scrupulously
assessing their capabilities. If he doubts the future happy fate of an elite
representative of the feline world, he may refuse to buy you. - If the kennel is ready to give you a month-old kitten, this moment
should alert you. Professionals transfer the animal to new owners when it
reaches four months, when all vaccinations have already been made. - Evaluate the conditions in which kittens are kept in the nursery: how
many animals are there, whether there is enough space for them, whether
there are scratching posts, what babies are fed, whether they are accustomed
to the tray. - Kittens of Maine Coon with excellent pedigree are always expensive —
there are no exceptions here and, in general, there can not be. The prices
of breeders of Maine Coon breeds are rather big, but this is quite
understandable. In order for the nursery and its inhabitants to always be in
an exemplary condition, it is necessary to constantly invest a lot of time,
effort and finances. Finding and buying the perfect breeding stock, updating
it, the best feed, vaccines and veterinarians — all this simply cannot be
cheap. However, you can count on a discount if you agree to become the owner
of a beautiful kitten with a so-called “marriage” of the breed. The main
difference of such a kitten is only that he will not be able to participate
in breed exhibitions and breeding, but he will be no less a beloved pet.