Is a license needed....??

Hi all I have been a member for a while but due to work commitments ( which have now calmed down, phew!) I have not been on for a while. I have a question. I was given a Maine Coon (f) by a friend of a friend last year, and fell in love with the breed. She had had 2 litters then been spayed. The same friends friend has offered a male at a good price, and his kittens are adorable! We have decided to take the male, but are now thinking we would like to breed them ourselves also. What I want to know is how to go about it? Is a license needed? We love the kittens and would really like to raise a couple of litters, but know nothing about the world of breeding at the minute. We DO however know about cats and particularly a couple of breeds. Just enquiring at the moment however, as we need to do a lot more research. Thanks, Sharon.

Maybe some states you might need a license, but in general, no. However, its a lot of background work to get into breeding QUALITY cats. Here's some basics.

First, if you are serious about the breed, the only reason to breed is to IMPROVE the breed and show your cats. If you are breeding to make a little money, to produce just cute, pretty, pets, then don't even think about it. You need to have money to do genetic testing in the breed (some breeds are prone to certain blood or physical problems and should be tested before breeding). You need money for vets, food, showing, and caring for kittens for the first 3-4 months. Kittens should not be sold or placed before 12 weeks old as they need important time with mom/siblings to be mentally and physically ready to leave.

I would strongly suggest you not take a male for breeding as your first cat. Males are tricky. They will spray and will need separate quarters where you can wash the room easily. They need at least 3-4 females to be kept happy for breeding. If this male is SHOW quality or has been proven, that's great. But if he's never been in the show ring, how do you really know the quality.

I would purchase a SHOW quality altered cat and start by showing and learning about the breed. Will tell you that Maine Coons are popular in the show ring and the competition is very tough. So you have to have a very very good quality cat to start. Then as you learn more about the breed, you can work with a Maine Coon mentor and purchase a show quality breeding female. Grand her and then look for a good male to breed her to. You need to know the standard so you can access what is the good/bad points - what is show, what is pet and why.

You have to establish yourself with breeders as a serious person, not as someone that only wants a few litters and quits. Its hard work, it takes a lot of money to get to the point of breeding your own lines, and it takes TIME. Most people that are serious will take about 5 yrs before they are ready to begin breeding cats.

Not a license, but you do need to have your prefix (cattery name) registered with a feline association before anyone will even consider selling you a cat with breeding rights here.

Depending on where you live I don't agree that you need to Grand her before breeding, (I'm thinking you might be in the UK, which is similar to here) this takes a minimum of 4-8 months or so as adult and that's IF you can get to every show with your girl not calling/out of condition, most are looking at approx. an 18 month old girl (at least) before she grands and most need to be bred before that.
Neuters barely grand before 18 months, my Ana went to every show and did well at each show - she was 16 months when she got her grand. This also is dependant on the show season and date of birth of your girl

It is good to start out with a desexed show cat to learn about the standards and meet other breeders, even if they have a different breed they will still have lots of knowledge to share.

If your boy didn't come with pedigree papers, you certainly should not breed him at all. I agree with GK, you should be in it for the long haul not just breeding a few "cute" litters.

Thanks for the help We live in the UK by the way The Maine Coon we have is a spayed female who was showed by this same guy. The male kitten we have been offered is actually her Grandson The guy shows a lot of his cats, but at the minute is not (messy divorce and the wife let him take the cats, but refuses to allow him the papers, so he has to reapply). His cats are beautiful, but as you say, we don't plan on just getting a cat and breeding, we would be researching standards etc. Just wanted to gather the info on breeding as we so not know the laws in Britain about them and seems Google gives rubbish results in this area! Anyway, thanks again, and here are a pic we took yesterday when viewing the cat

Didn't realize you were not in the US (better to grand cats in US). But if you can't grand him, then he should be shown to at least a champion before he's even bred.

The rules can differ a lot in different associations (for example the recognized colors in certain breeds and do you need show results for the cat etc) and it's very good to read the registration/breeding rules through couple of times.

I would suggest you to take your current cat to shows so you get to see other breeders and become more familiar with the breed standard. I was surprised when I realized that I had developed 'an eye' for my own breed (British Shorthair) and could easily tell if cat has flaws or if it's very good etc. Example: my show cat Kuura has too long tail, too flat forehead and a bit too pale eye color, but his fur color is almost perfect. Few (FifÃ[emoji]169[/emoji])shows back we had a judge who thought Kuura was perfect and couldn't find anything wrong with him. Obviously it was very nice to listen to him praise the cat but I could tell that the judge wasn't that familiar with this breed. Next day we had a judge who definately pointed out every single flaw...

It's also very important to know at least basic genetics and the familylines of your breeding cat, what are the hereditary problems in those lines if there are any etc. That helps a lot when deciding a partner for your cat.

GCCF http://www.gccfcats.org/ should have some information regarding breeding, showing, getting your prefix etc. http://www.gccfcats.org/breednshow.html

There are probably other associations in the UK as well.

Hi again. We decided against breeding the cats. We have 5 now, (picked up "Kaylo" tonight) and think it's only fair we pay them all the attention. We did however, get the papers for "Saphia" and have a question that soemone here may be able to answer. It seems here in the North East of England, a lot of Maine Coons, and Norwegian Forests who are showed (Saphia also has a few certificates for winning shows) have the forename "Trappistini". What is this? I assume this is the bloodline the cat has come from, but really don't want to maks "an ass out of u and me", lol

Usually you have a cattery name (which is the first name on the cat), then the cat's name (kinda like a middle name), and then sometimes "of (name)" which is the cattery of the one who now owns the cat. For example:

My new Ocicat will be Catiators Cpt Jack Sparrow of TC.

Catiators is the breeder's cattery name; Cpt Jack Sparrow is the name I picked for him; and "TC" is my cattery name.

A little OT, but I have to ask

1) Does TC stand for anything in particular?

2) Has there ever been a time when you couldn't fit your cattery name on a cat?

That is one reason my cattery is TC - so I can add it to almost every cat (Jack barely makes it)

TC kinda stands for "Top Cat" (someone thought it did). My 1st choice when I registered it in CFA was TeeCee; TC was 2nd choice. Apparently there was another cattery with the TeeCee, so they took my 2nd choice. It honestly doesn't really have a meaning behind it.

I'm not sure how many characters CFA allows but here in NZ it is 33 - that makes it a push for long cattery names - such as mine, Captivating!

We only get 25, including spaces. If you want to add your cattery name on the end it has to fit in the 25 characters.

Yes in Texas...

Wow 25 that WOULD make it difficult. I think the longest named cat I had from Australia was from Tas and that was just Skybank Loonie Toones