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Confessions of a Cat Breeder

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Re: new breeder

Dear Sue,
Jasmine Kinnear has written extensively about finding an ethical mentor in her 1st book "Proven Marketing Tips for the Successful Cat Breeder." Below is an excerpt to assist you:

Every breeder needs advice and help to create a profitable cattery. However, when do you know that you have found a competent mentor?
A good mentor will want to educate you. A poor mentor will place their needs first by using your success to profit their own cattery. There are many essential secrets that should be passed along from breeder to breeder. Unfortunately, these guarded secrets change from one breeder to the next and even within the different breeds.
That mentor who has become so helpful to you may not have your best interests at heart. If you have found a breeder who is taking on the role of mentor ask yourself the following questions:

1) Do you find yourself questioning your mentor’s suggestions?
2) Do you trust your mentor’s actions and agree that their methods are ethical?
3) Does your mentor raise the same breed of kitten as you and are you purchasing from their cattery?
4) Do you feel used or taken advantage of by your mentor due to contracts and purchases that appear to work more in their favor?

Sue, all these questions are answered in detail in Jasmine's book, but to assist you I will post the response to the 3rd question below:

3) Does your mentor raise the same breed of kitten as you and are you purchasing from their cattery?

Unless your mentor resides in an area far removed from your cattery problems often arise when this scenario comes into play. It is unwise to purchase from a cattery too close to your home. It is also unwise to sign any contracts which may limit your use or permit your mentor use of any stud male purchased
from your mentor or in partnership with your mentor. Therefore, it may be better to purchase slowly and ask many questions from the cattery where you intend to complete feline purchases.
It is far easier to use cat shows, the internet and web sites such as Jasmine’s Confessions of a Cat Breeder for unbiased information. If you read or are given the same advice from several unrelated sources and are comfortable with that information chances are it will be right for your cattery.

Sue, I hope this helps... please let us know if you require any additional information.

Re: new breeder

I am new to this forum and don't know how to use it yet so I can reply to the post I want to.I could use some help with this.I'm trying to reply to sue.

My name is Beth, I am a Russian Blue breeder of 15 yrs.I have also worked in the pet indudtry all my life. 18 yrs as a Dog groomer,Kennel work and shelters. After that I became a Vet tech for Dogs and Cats, then my most favorite job at a Cat Clinic. I was with animals 24/7. Very few breeders work in the Pet industry. There is probably nothing that I have not seen or done. I think I've expeienced everything.
As a result, I am a breeder who is anti breeding in many ways. I would never start up a person who wants to breed with my cats, Never.

But if someone is going to do it and needs help, I am there to help if requested to a certain degree. I won't be there to continuously get someone out of a jam. Some people shouldn't be breeding and will never get it. Those people need to be allowed to fail IMO.

I have helped many breeders, not as mentor but as a friend to a breeder who needs help. Paul has laid it out for you regarding this breeder who also insist on being a mentor and controlling the cat he sells to you. I think you already knew the answer though, your instinct is telling you that this doesn't seem right. It is important to listen to your instincts, to use them and let them grow, as a breeder you must have good instinct in all areas to know when something is not right. Sue, you answered your own question. When you begin to question your instincts and ask questions you already answered yourself, you will get a variety of different answers and become confused as to what to do. Learn to trust yourself, as a breeder you are entering a world that requires you to learn by experience and your Gut. I would never take a cat that is attatched with so many strings, a mentor can be good, a control freak is not. These relationships often fail miserably.

For Raeanna. I began just like you. I went for 4 cats and came home with 22. Wow!!! Talk about a nightmare and I was fortunate to be working in Vet Hospital to get the cats treated, have a 50% discount and the help. I had 3 breeds to start with and these where problem cats. My Siamese came to me with Pyo, my Ocicat delivered in my daughters toy box while I was at work, fortunately just one kitten as she fell to the bottom and died. I had a Russian I couldn't yet touch who had kittens, yet I didn't know she was even bred.
I learned the hard way. I had not one breeder friend to help me out for quite some time and no Internet, I was alone with all this stuff. Another Ocicat decided to eat the heads of her babies who where now three weeks old. I woke to hear crunch, crunch, crunch. I foolishly bred her again and she decided to eat the heads once again of beautiful healthy babies.
I quickly learned I had to many cats and to many issues. I altered and placed all the cats except for the Russians. I male, 3 females. I had a closed cattery for 5 yrs and knew most breeders never made it to that point. After 5 yrs of practice, learning, saving lives, I figured I was a suvivior and should improve myself and my cats. In 1995, I had an average litter size of two and a good number of loss. In 2005, I have 5 and 6 kittens, which is large for a Russian and an very low mortality rate. What your about to deal with isn't going to be easy. Your best to cull some of those cats and place them as pets in nice homes. As a new breeder of Himalayans, cut the numbers down and practice for awhile. See if you can even do this, some of those cats are carriers of something, find out who and get them out. Unfortunately you may not know who until kittens are born and get sick. Sometimes that is the only way to know who to place, Herpes virus is common and adults carry this unnoticed, with this breed the same is true of ringworm, plus you must test for PKD with this breed, Don't you?. When the kittens get a URI, you then know the mother is a carrier. I've had to tell many people to remove the queen, but they won't. Instead they just get online and complain of problems. Try not to be one of these people, your not
a true breeder until you take action and do something to reduce the illness and mortality rate of your kitten. You should know how many kittens born each year and how many died or born dead. Your mortality rate will be an indicator of how your doing and if your improving your cattery. It is said that 30% is acceptable, but I feel even this is to high and one can do better. Get your numbers down to 4 or 5 cats.
If you keep an offspring, then you must place an adult. Never keep an offspring from a litter that got
a URI as a kitten. She will grow up and be a carrier,
each litter she has will get sick with goo eyes. Not

I've talked to much. Nice meeting everyone.
I highly recommend to anyone breeding or thinking about it, to purchase the series of books written by jasmine. Excellant reading and a breeder must have