Maned kitties

Our Ozzy cat is a rescue moggy, and every winter he grows an impressive mane. I have posted these pictures before, when I returned here for a spell in May, but not on this part of the forum, and this time I'd love to see other peoples cats with their manes.

As the days get colder and shorter, he'll start to grow it once again. Last winters was his most impressive. 

Anyway, here's how his coat is currently. Semi long hair, but short around his head and neck.


And this was him at the end of last winter, just before he started to moult it, and present us with hairball puke on occasion.


I'd love to see your kitties sporting winter coats. 

Every time I see pictures of Ozzy, I love the way he looks with the mane even more. Judging by the ear tufts, I would say there is some Maine Coon in his ancestry.  Glad to see you back online.

Thanks. It's nice to be remembered, he could have a drop of Maine Coon DNA flowing around his body. He has tufts of hair between his toes, underneath, which I believe is a trait too. But he's basically a big old moggy. :-)  

I tend to keep finding my way back here. 

I want to see more manes though, there must be more out there.

Oh Ozzy is SO adorable! What a great face. I never understand how people can think cats do not have facial expressions.

My iPhoto is messed up at the moment but I took these photos of Tophel (rhymes with "waffle" and is short for Mephistopheles) with PhotoBooth (sorry quality not great) last week for my sister. Tophel has been growing this mane since August! I believe it's going to be a cold winter. 

Last winter, he didn't grow one at all but we didn't even have a freeze.

If you google images of "Black Smoke Maine Coon" you will see many of Tophel's relatives. 


He has some sort of second mane behind his front legs, too. 

He's sweetie sweet sweet kitty.   

I thought since Tophel's pictures got so much positive feedback 

Awww!  They look like little lions!

Tophel is lovely. I think they do seem to be able to predict the winter. We had a cold one last year, and Ozzy's mane was ready before the cold set in. It'll be interesting to see how it develops this year. Does it get bigger with age, or can we predict the winter by him?

Oz'sMum said:

Does it get bigger with age, or can we predict the winter by him?

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I'm not sure - he didn't have a mane at all the first winter after we got him, but he wasn't in great shape. Once he was doing well, he got a mane every year (except for the warm winter last year). It's been getting bigger and bigger since August.

We'll have to compare notes later on what kind of winters we had and how big their manes got. 

Maybe we can start long term weather forecasts for our areas. lol 

Ozzy hasn't much to show yet, but the weather only started to cool down about a month ago, so it's early days yet. He's not as smooth as the photo at the top mind you.

Here's Tophel when we first got him (sans mane).

aww those two cats have awesome manes!! heres my cheetos and his lil mane :3

OMG Cheetos is adorable - what a cutie I want to hug him. And look at that impressive tail! 

SwampWitch said:

 
OMG Cheetos is adorable - what a cutie I want to hug him. And look at that impressive tail! 

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awww hes awesome, i love his tail as well its so fluffy, what breed is Tophel, he has a very impressive mane going there 

He certainly has a very impressive tail.

Top he'll has changed a lot. I bet you didn't expect him to turn into that ball of fluff.

They are all so impressive and handsome! I've had 4 other long-hair cats in my life, they were/are all female and none ever grew much of a mane. Is it typically a male thing?

Anyway, Here's Crooner. He showed up on our property in Dec. 2012, completely (and I mean completely) knotted and matted. There was not a hair on his poor little body that was not tangled in some way. There was vegetation, sticks, bugs, you name it, it was woven into those mats.  At some point his jaw had been broken and his bottom jaw is shifted to the right about 3/8" so I'm sure grooming was not possible for him for a quite a while. Now he has people for that! ;-) It took quite a while to get the mats off of him and a lot of them fell off by themselves as spring progressed. When I called the vet's office to make an appointment for his neutering in May 2013, they asked what kind of cat he was, I remember telling them that if he had any hair he would be DLH. He was almost completely bald at that time!

          
Crooner in mid-April 2013. Those          Crooner in late-July 2013 after his               Crooner in late-October 2013.

are mats sticking up & out.                      grew back.

Poor cat, but his coat is great now. And he has an impressive mane already.

We can't actually groom Ozzy, when we got him at about 3 years old, he'd been living wild, and was still wary of even being stroked. I tried various ways of desensitising him to the comb, but nothing worked. He manages his coat himself. In spring, he pulls the clumps of his moulting winter coat out with his teeth. He manages it quite well, there are no matts. But I'll have to keep an eye on it as he gets older.