Our Approach to Breeding

OUR APPROACH TO BREEDING

We firmly believe that temperament is inherited, so we select only friendly, gentle, outgoing cats for breeding.
All cats in our breeding program are screened free of hyptertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) by cardiac ultrasound, performed by Dr. Jerry Woodfield, a board-certified veterinary cardiologist. We test each of our breeding cats for HCM annually.
All cats in our breeding program have been radiographed free of hip dysplasia.
All cats in our breeding program have been screened free of patellar luxation (loose knees).
All cats in our cattery are FeLV- and FIV-negative, and are retested whenever they come in contact with a cat from someone else's cattery (for example, queens are retested before & after visiting an outside stud). We have never had a cat test positive for either FeLV or FIV (knock on wood).

HOW OUR CATS LIVE

Our cats live inside our house, not in cages or a separate outbuilding. (We are fortunate to have a huge house -- nearly 6000 square feet.) Many of our adult cats and older kittens have the run of the house. We do confine our stud males to prevent spraying and accidental breedings; each of our boys has his own room. Since unaltered females can also spray (usually only when they're in season), we also have a separate "girls' room" for our more unladylike ladies.

HOW WE RAISE OUR KITTENS

Our kittens are handled frequently from birth, so that they become accustomed to people at an early age. We raise each litter separately until the kittens have completed at least two inoculations. Our three nursery areas have plenty of room for kittens to run and play (our babies are never caged!). By the time our kittens emerge from the nursery, they are fully litterbox trained and have learned to use a scratching post.