Worries about potential new addition to the family

Hello,

My wife and I have decided to get our first cat. We're both very excited! After doing a lot of research and consideration, we decided to get a very specific type of cat, and have a pretty specific preference on colors (or I guess I should say she does). Specifically we are looking into getting Scottish Fold. There are not a lot of Scottish Fold catteries in our area, but we are lucky enough to have found what appears to be the perfect kitten. He is the last unspoken for kitten in his litter, and of course looks very cute. After looking through all the cattery sites around us, we think we may not find another opportunity like this again for many months.

So this gets to my one concern. I spoke with the breeder a to arrange a visit this weekend, and was told that the kitten was separated from his mother several days ago. At that point he was just 7 weeks and 1 day old. According to the breeder, her vet who came to check up on the kittens told her it was the time. The breeder plans to send all of the kittens in this litter home with their new families next weekend (so they will be 9 weeks old). According to the breeder, all kittens are are eating well on their own and are at a healthy weight.

There are millions of different opinions on the web, but the biggest consensus seems to suggest that it is best to separate a kitten from its mother between 8-10 weeks from birth, and to send it to its new home 8-12 weeks from birth. Some seem to suggest potentially dire consequences if separation from the mother and its litter mates happen too soon. So, based on what I have written, should we consider passing on this kitten (we really don't want to), or do you all think things should turn out well? We will be going to visit with a friend who knows quite a bit more than us, which should help. When we are there, what should we look for to make sure the kitten isn't traumatized or might have potential behavioral issues?

Thanks!!!

We're living in Europe now (originally from the States). The breeder is in one of the smaller European countries. I am not sure if the rules are the same there and if they are registered or not, and to be honest I don't know how I could find out, but I will try to look. Maybe I can just ask when we visit...

Assuming there aren't any particular rules there, and just based on the situation, what are your thoughts?

Thanks!!

Thanks for all the replies. We've done some more sleuthing into the breeders and based on everything we learned, we feel a lot more comfortable now. Everything seems to be on the up and up. I guess the biggest indicator will be seeing how the kitten reacts to us and what his personality seems like when we visit tomorrow. We will plan on leaving the kitten at the breeder's home as long as possible.

Thanks!

Mews2much, I just saw your reply after submitting this post. Thanks for looking into that for us. We will get information about the cat club from the breeder when we visit tomorrow and make sure everything checks out.

Will do.

Thanks!

Mews2Much and everyone else, thank you for you help the other day. To give you an update, we took our new kitten home last Saturday. He's been very social since the minute we got him, and was even friendly toward people who came up to him in the transporter during the train ride. Other than sometimes incredibly annoying meowing fits he goes into when he goes for 5 minutes without getting the attention he thinks he deserves (we made the mistake of reinforcing that habit on the first day), he's perfect. No behavioral problems as far as we can tell (litter box trained with no accidents yet, and uses the scratch post like he should, eats like a champ).

Within 30 minutes of bringing him home, he was running around the house like he owned it, and every day he learns a new trick and gains an ability to get somewhere else new we don't necessarily want him to go. And he has already very clearly grown attached to my wife and me. So all in all, everything has gone better than we hoped it would so far (knock on wood).

So while I won't recommend anyone else take a nine week kitten home, it seems we got lucky this time.

Thanks again,

Tim