Our goal is to raise healthy, well-adjusted kittens that walk into your home confident and ready to be a part of your family.   To do that, we take a different approach than many breeders you may contact.   If you research breeders, you may have a checklist of things to ask a breeder about their kittens.   Here's our answers to those common questions, and our explanation as to why we might do things a bit different than some of the others.  

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Q:  Do you health test the parents?  ​

A:   Absolutely!   We run a genetic screen and multiple echocardiograms on all our breeding cats.   We don't run one every year on every cat for multiple reasons - a big one being if HCM is going to manifest itself, it will either do it early on or later in life.  We feel it is pointless to do one every single year on a young, healthy cat.   We would rather spend the money on scanning their ancestors periodically even after they are out of our breeding program.   If they don't scan positive early on, they aren't likely to scan positive until they are out of the breeding program, and it is too late to do anything about it.   If we scan their relatives who are older, we are more likely to catch a late onset case and we can make a decision about keeping their progeny in our breeding program.   To date, we have not had any reports of HCM or any other genetically based diseases in our kittens.

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Q:  What are your views on vaccination?  

A:  Our vet vaccinates our kittens at around 6, 9 and 12 weeks with the FVRCP vaccine.  They get rabies at 4 months if we still have them.   We recommend the feline leukemia vaccine if the kitten will be participating in cat shows or if there's any risk of coming in contact with an outdoor cat, but not beyond the kitten series or after the age of 1.  We don't vaccinate ourselves - we believe the exam the kittens get at 6 and 9 weeks is as, if not more, important than the vaccines, and there are little savings if we do them ourselves.   While it's a little more work for us, we only do one vaccine at a time and never when they are spayed or neutered if we can possibly avoid it.   We believe vaccinations, while necessary in kittens, is a stressor on the kittens' immune system and multiple vaccinations at one time should be avoided.   There is some evidence that stress is what causes the feline enteric corona virus to mutate into feline infectious peritonitis (FIP), so we work hard to avoid excessive stress on kittens physically and mentally.   We are happy to report we have not had a single case of FIP reported to us by one of our kitten clients and have never experienced in any of our cats.   We feel incredibly blessed to have avoided this horrible disease.  

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Q:  What should I feed my cat?  

A:  We feed our cats a mix of canned and dry premium commercial foods.   We only buy food from manufactures who field test their products.  We do not feed fresh raw, nor do we recommend it, and from time to time we feed freeze dried raw.  We recommend that you feed your kitten whatever we are feeding it at the time they go home for a few weeks, then if desired, transition them, particularly if you have other cats and don't want to be feeding multiple products.   Always consult with your veterinarian if you think your cat needs a diet change.   Diet changes can be a stressful event for a cat, so we recommending not changing unless they quit eating it or have other health issues that need to be address through diet.   We recommend feeding a kitten formulated wet and dry food until about the age of 1 year.  We also recommend filtering tap water for at least chlorine and fluorine as at acceptable human levels they can damage a feline's kidneys over time.   If you travel a lot, we recommend you give your cat bottled water or carry filtered water from home.   A cat's digestive system is affected by changes in water and cause them some gastric distress.   We also recommend meal feeding your cat.  For more information on meal feeding rather free feeding click HERE. 

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Q:  Other breeders say cats are obligate carnivores and should be fed a raw meat diet only. Why don't you? 

A:  First, I believe that "obligate carnivore" is misinterpreted by many breeders.   What that means is that the cat's body does not produce all the amino acids it needs and animal flesh is the only form of food that has the missing amino acids.  If cats are fed a plant based diet, they will become sick and die.    If they are fed raw meat that is not properly supplemented, they will also become sick and die.  They will become sick and die if raw meat becomes contaminated with bacteria and other microbials.  

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My first cats were fed dry only from a major food manufacture and lived to be 21 and 19.  I don't recommend that any more, as many cats don't get enough water on a kibble-only diet.    Our favorites, if you can afford it,  is Vital Essentials freeze-dried raw reconsitituted and fed in small amounts two to three times a day.   Discard anything not eaten after 15 - 30 min.  We only use as a topper or treat as it is quite expensive, but if you want to feed your cat a safe, nutritionally balanced diet, it's the way to go.   

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Also, don't believe what you hear about vets being in the pocket of food manufactures.   That simply is not true.  Most carry prescription foods for the convenience of their clients with a sick animal, and they make small commissions on mail order programs.  Nothing that would cause them to violate their oath as a veterinary to first, do no harm.  People become vets because they deeply care about animals, and they are not going to recommend a diet that is harmful to them.   They recommend against raw diets because they have treated far too many animals that have become sick because their owners did not know how to formulate and handle a raw diet properly.  

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Q:   At what age do you place your kittens?  

A: That is a decision that you and I will make together.  Every kitten and every home environment is different.  I will not ever send them home before the age of 9 1/2 weeks, and I will only send them home to experienced cat homes before the age of 12 weeks.   I will hold a kitten until they are four months old if the owner is not comfortable with a younger kitten - I will hold a kitten for more than four months in extenuating circumstances but I will charge $5/day room and board.   In no case will I force a new owner to take a kitten younger than they are comfortable.   Kitten brains do the most development between 6 and 12 weeks, particularly their relationship with humans.   We work hard to socialize our kittens and get them off to the best start we can, but if they are here much beyond 12 weeks they are bonding to us and not you.   This has nothing to do with money - we believe the transition is easier on the kitten between 10 and 12 weeks, but it has to be done properly.   Families that are not home during the day or have young children probably should wait until about 14 weeks.   Breeders like to point to a poorly controlled study that found that kittens that were separated from their mother before the age of 8 weeks had aggression problems.   That is true.   However, some of the conclusions drawn on older kittens are not well proven, and even the authors noted more research needed to be done.   Our own experience has been that kittens we have acquired at 9-10 weeks of age are not only NOT more aggressive, they are some of our most affectionate, talented, and devoted cats because they developed strong bonds with us and not someone else before they came to live with us.  

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Q:  I like your philosophy.  How do I adopt one of your kittens?

A: The first step is to fill out the contact form and ask to be put on our e-mail list. We do not charge to be on this list as we generally don't have a lot of kittens available to pet homes.   All we ask is that if you find your new baby, please let us know so we can take you off our active list.   When we believe we will have a kitten available to you, we will send you our adoption questionnaire to help us match a kitten to your preferences.   Please be clear on what is a "must have" and what is a preference.   If we know we are going to have a kitten available to you that matches your preferences, we will ask for a $300 deposit.   We may not be able to identify a specific kitten for you at the time we ask for a deposit as we can evaluate for show quality up to 4 months of age, but we know we will have one that meets your preferences when we ask for the deposit.   If we cannot meet your preferences as we thought after we take a deposit,  your deposit is 100% refundable. 

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