...and what does "registered breeder" mean?
In Austria by law cat breeders have to register with their local council vet. In turn the council vet has to inspect each cattery so see if the minimum requirements set by the law are met.
Though on top of that it's important to make sure the breeder is also registered with a local cat breeder club that is associated with an international registry.
It is those breder clubs the set breeding guide lines for the wellfare of the cats that by far exceed the requirements set by the law.
More on this topic you can find here
Two cats are always better than one - they are up to less nonsense as they are busy playing with each other and they are not bored as easily.
It's not true that vats preffer a solitary life style. Cats hunt by themselves but even stray cats live together in groups if they have a chance to do so.
Even if you are home a lot you can't be a substitute for another cat.
More on this topic you find here
Wenn die Einzelkatze reden könnte
Einzelhaltung von Wohnungskatzen
Tagebuch eines Kätzchens
By nature cats are carnivores that means their digestive system is design to handle mostly proteine and fat. Carbohydrates and fiber are 5% or less of the natural pray and the moisture content is around 70%.
Food appropriate for the species should follow that model.
This already makes clear that dry food is convenient but never the perfect cat food.
Dry food conteins always more carbohydrates than proteine and the moisture content is appr. 10%. With a daily intake of 50g of dry food a cat would have to drink more than 100ml to reach the nessecary amount of fluid. Even cats that drink a lot dont reach that amount. There is a reason why kidney failure is the #1 reason of death in cats.
We feed appr. 50% wet food and 50% raw meat with supplements.
Commercial wet food should contain all a cat needs for life - should - as of cause there is also a wide range of quality here. Though trust your common sense: What smells ugly and has undistinguishable content is probably not the best. Read the fine print on the containers - the ingredientses have to be listed in the order of amount, the more precise the declaration the better a product usually is.
The most natural way of feeding is BARF (= Bones And Raw Food) which tries to immidate the natural pray. As we usually dont feed whole mice including stomach and coat but meat (from different animals) it is important to supplement the missing parts (mostlöy bones and blood) as soon as you feed more than 20% meat. The most important substance to be substituted is Taurine. Taurine is an essential amino acid for cats and mice contain 10 times more taurine than any other meat.
More information on cat food you will find here
cat nutrition
Feline Future
Many indoor plants are poisonous for cats - right on top of the list are poinsettia, ficus benjamin and lilies though there are many more.
Check your plants against that link and if you are not sure rather get that plant out of cats reach.
As a rule of thumb remember: What produces a milky fluid when you break of a piece is most likely poisonous.
Most cats are not very interested in plants though with young kittens it may happen that they mistake a plant pot for the litter box. A simple and nice solution for that is to cover the soil with large river pebble.
Breeding cats is an expensieve hobby and like with each hobby it costs money and does not produce an abundance of it.
That starts with the costs for
- Buying breedings cats and transfer them to your home (and not each cat that's bought for breeding will ever produce)
- stud fees and travel to bring the cat to the stud (or buying and keeping an own stud)
- Basic supplies like for every pet cat
- health screenings (HCM, PKD, blood type, HD, genetic tests - some of those to be repeated regularly)
- vaccines, food and litter for the breeding cats
- expenses for raising the kittens (starting from 4 weeks they use a lot of food and litter)
- vaccinating, microchiping and alterng the kittens
...and that lisn#T including any complications yet.
It gets really expensive when you need an emergency c-section or kittens injure themselves or you pic uü some bugs and have to treat all your cats for weeks. ...no one has good luck forever and the more cats you have the more sensible the balance becomes.
„It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.
John Ruskin, 08.02.1819 - 20.01.1900
If you think you can recover the price you paid for your kitten or are thinking of a supplementary income I have to dissapoint you: That ain't work!
If it were possible to make a monetary gain from breeding cats I would have quitted my 9-5job long ago and would have made breeding cats my main occupation. Also you have no idea how much time it really takes to raise a cute litter of kittens.
More on this topic you can find here
As a breeder it gives me the security to know kittens I have sold as pets will stay pets. It happens often that a cat looses it's home due to life changes of their owner - or because the cute kitten is suddenly a stinky sprayer or keeps them from sleeping because she is calling so loud. Unfortunately not everyone remembers that my contract states that my kittens always can come back home thus it can happen a cat gets into the wrong hands. With early spay/neuter at least I can be sure they will never have to raise a litter by ther own or end up as birthing machine at a back-yard-breeder.
Furthermore kittens recover much faster from desexing than an adult cat - as soon as they have slept of the anesthetic they run around like nothing ever happened - and you will never have to worry about it.
It is not true that early spayed/neuterd cats stay smaller, rather the opposite is true. They growth fisures close a few weeks later thus they grow a bit longer.
Also it's not true that it causes problems with urethrea in males this condition is way more influenced by genetic predisposition and feeding regime.
More on this topic you find here