Camelot Cats Cattery

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Selecting a Persian Cat for a Breeder
 
Breeding pedigreed Persians is not a trivial endeavor.  New breeders are always welcome provided that the new breeder is prepared to act responsibly and capable of absorbing the various cost of getting started.
 
Breeding for show requires that the cats used in a show breeding program be properly registered, genetically strong enough to develop quality lines over the years and meet the minimum, if not best, show standards to Champion and Grand Champion in open competition.
 
Show breeders breed for show and work to develop each kitten into a show cat.  If there are minor physical anomalies in a kitten, it can usually be used as a breeder and produce just a good quality kittens as a litter mate that made the show circuit.
 
Kittens that have genetic defects are culled from the breeding population, spayed or neutered and placed in good homes as high quality pets.
 
Breeders are either male or female and are best selected for what they can offer in a breeding program when matched with a mate of known pedigree.  There are some guide lines that can be followed to limit ones risk of not getting what they want in a breeder.  Lest look as some of the guidelines and associated risks.
 
You must look at pedigrees to have any idea of what you will get from a breeding.  If you don't know the pedigree, ask for a copy so you can see what is "behind" the breeder you are looking to purchase.  If you don't understand pedigrees yet and are a beginner, talk to the breeder you are looking to buy from and ask their advice.
 
Quality and color are the only factors that you can influence when selecting which two cats will breed.  The pedigree is the key to this influence and you will have far better luck with color than quality.  It is logical then to select a breeder that has sufficiently matured in age to determine its personality and physical characteristics as well as its health.  Older kittens such as 6 to 8 months old will either be healthy or will not be healthy.  They must have all their shots by this age and also are showing adult physical characteristics.  Young kittens may not get very large but older kittens have either stopped growing (which is usually obvious) or are good sized and still growing (which tends to also be obvious).  Eye color on a very young kitten is blue and will, in time, turn to its adult color.  If you want good eye color from your breeder, wait till you can see what you are getting.
 
If you want a certain color, then color-breed with color-bred cats.  If you want rainbow colors, use Calico or Tortoiseshell females.  If you want a lot of white, make sure the Pie Bald Spotting Gene is in the gene pool (Van).  If you want dilute colored kittens, you need dilute present in both the Dam and Sire.  Above all, remember that what you get will always be a statistical distribution of what Mother Nature says you can get and hardly ever is evenly distributed.  Check out the CFA Color Charts on the CFA web page for more information on color .  You should know and need to know about these things if you are going to be a
 
Understand what inbreeding and line breeding mean.  Altering the natural distribution of the gene pool is what breeders do to force show quality results.  If you alter the gene pool distribution too much through inbreeding, you will regret the small size, poor health,  and genetic defects you will see in the kittens.
 
Breeding and Queening Tips
 
Most important, if you don't know what to do, CALL YOUR VETERINARIAN AND GET THE CAT TO THE CLINIC.  Most pedigreed Persians will not instinctively open the sack, clean the kitten's nose and mouth and proceed to clean the daylights out of the kitten.  This process is necessary to keep the kitten alive.  Persian breeders need to be a good midwife to the queen when she needs help.  Usually, opening the sack, clearing the nose and mouth with a suction bulb and separating the kitten from the afterbirth.  Always tie off the cord before cutting it so the kitten won't bleed to death.  If you must separate the kitten before the afterbirth has been ejected by the queen, tie off the other end too or blood will flow from the afterbirth and make a real mess.
 
Breeding
 
Always separated the male from the female until she is in heat and really ready.  If she is ready, she will be calling, paddling her back feet with her rear end in the air and very tense when touched.  Then put them in a cage together (always clip claws first) and monitor their efforts to be sure things don't get out of hand.  Sometimes new Queens will fight with the male until she understands what he is there for and after that she will control the breeding proactively.  Breed for several days (3 is a good number) and separate them until she either goes into heat again or fails to go into heat which usually means she is bred.
 
A male can service easily six females and you will need two males to line breed without inbreeding.  Stud service is not common with Pedigreed cats because of the potential of viral infections so expect to do your own breeding and keep a "closed cattery" to avoid catastrophic viral infections which can and has killed off entire lines.  Check with your Veterinarian for first hand advice for the safety of your cats.
 
Females can breed from several times a year to once every few years and deliver from one to eight kittens.  Four is a good number.  When the numbers get higher, the kittens are usually born smaller and harder to keep alive.  The size of the female is misleading.  Camelot Cats has had problems with large females and no problems with small (4 1/2#) females but it is still smart to pick a nice size female for a breeder.
 
Queening
 
Keep the female clean before and during the time she is with kittens.  Wash her and shave down the tummy with a clipper that has a very small surgical blade (or you will cut the queen) so the babies can find the milk supply easier.  They sometime fight over the same nipple so keep kitten claw clipped or you will have problems with cut lips and eyes.
 
Keep the female in a secluded safe (to her way of thinking) place at least a week before and for 6 weeks after the kittens are born to avoid her from harming the kittens to keep them from other cats.  This is an instinctive response that we have never experienced but have heard others complain about.  Fear can be one of the triggers that will cause a queen to kill or eat kittens.  A safe undisturbed place should prevent her from doing the kittens harm.  However, if you get a queen that rejects the kittens from the first and shows violent tendencies toward the kittens, either find a surrogate mother or hand-feed them and don't breed her again.  Spay her and place her as a pet.
 
Expect to help hook up the kittens for the first time.  Work a little milk from a teat and touch the kitten's mouth to the milk.  Instinct should take over.  If you stick the kittens nose on the milk or if the kitten sniffs the milk into its nose, simply suction the milk from the nose and try again.  If the kitten doesn't like that teat, try another one farther up toward the mother's head.  Keep trying to get the kittens to nurse until successful.  This can take minutes or hours.  Kittens nursing on a queen is important to both the kittens and the queen.  The initial milk carried by the queen has important antibodies in it to help protect the kitten.  Also, suckling helps the queen physically recover from the ordeal of birth.
 
Sometimes there are problems and breeders need to recognize these problems.  The very large head of a Persian is difficult to pass through the birth canal and can be life threatening to the queen because she may not be able to pass a very large kitten through the birth canal.  If this occurs, either all the kittens die and are reabsorbed or the remains become infected (which can kill the queen) or the Veterinarian performs a C-Section.  Either plan the C-Section in advance because the Veterinarian has determined the kittens are too large or if you have a Veterinarian who will stay "on call" during the window when the kittens are due, you can wait and see if she can pass the kittens.  If not, you must decide quickly after the water breaks on the first one.  If she either can't pass the kitten or you wait too long, the kitten will die from lack of oxygen.  C-Sections can save all the kittens and the queen, however, plan to have at least one person per kitten available to perform artificial respiration to keep the kittens alive until the anesthetic wears off.  When the queen is anesthetized, so are the kittens and they do not breath on their own until the anesthetic wears off.  You will need to massage and keep the heart beating until the kitten begins to breath on its own.  This can take hours and when you hear that first SQEEEEEEK!, no sound is more welcome.  You will get cheers from the group, one, by one, as the kittens take their first breath and vocally offer their first complaint to your rough handling them.
 
There can be many reasons why a queen fails to accept kittens.  New mothers sometimes are afraid of the kittens and simply a little TLC and reassurance resolves the problem.  Sometimes, especially new queens feel great pain from the new milk in their swollen teats.  Milking hurts at first and the breeder may need to use warm moist compresses or rubbing to get things started.  Mother nature then takes over and you can go to bed.
 
The most difficult situation for a breeder to deal with is if the queen dies and next would be if the queen can not or will not nurse the kittens.  The first 24 hours of their mother's milk is extremely important to the kittens because it provides protection that their undeveloped immune system can not provide.  Breeders have hand-milked queens to get the "real thing" and have resorted to tube-feeding the very young.  Many times the kittens do not survive.  The most one can do is try their very best.  The first few hours and the first day are the most critical to kitten survival.  Kittens must take in plenty of fluids from the queen, keep warm (usually by nursing and being next to their mother) and maintain the correct blood sugar levels.  If they can not get what they need from the Queen, you must provide it for them.  Hand feeding and supplemental feeding is both time consuming and difficult.  Personally, I find it also quite rewarding because of the human imprinting and subsequent trust the kittens have toward humans.  Always work with your Veterinarian and do as much as you can with the queen and kittens at home, however, if you can not provide the care necessary for survival, get to the Veterinarian immediately or the kittens will die.
 
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Author: Robert Gottschalk
Copyright, Camelot Cats, Tallahassee, Florida
Date last changed: 08/04/2004
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