The great kitten debate

[Bloo]

Well, I've come to the conclusion that each "side" can preach all they like and until they are blue in the face - it really isn't going to make an ounce of difference to the “other” side in the least. Each side is really only affirming what they believe in and reiterating their point of view.

It certainly makes for entertaining reading, but that’s all it is really.

Me ? I don’t have a side. I don’t sit on the fence either, but can quite clearly see and understand both view points. I believe there is a time and a place for everything in life.

 

[Bloo]

No offence, but your kittens are just moggies... Im not sure what you class as a 'premium' but I would imagine its not far off what you'd pay for a pedigree cat.  To be honest, if people were willing to pay £50+ for a moggie, i'd think that they would be using it to breed, as you have with yours, and charge a similar price for the kittens. 

Maybe im just not trusting enough... 

Jessica, just to point out to you, it is very expensive to raise kittens. If done responsibly, the mother requires extra nutrition & supplements starting from the moment she is pregnant. Just think what it takes to produce all those skeletons and little bodies within her womb ! Deciding to allow one’s cat to have kittens is not free or even cheap by any means. (Yes Ninja - I know you're going to say it's better invested in a shelter and helping the cats there, but you've already pointed that out.) And once the kittens start eating solid foods (expensive special kitten food) money will start flowing too.
Yes, you don’t have to do any of this and leave it all to the mother cat – however you will only leave her malnourished and very weakened and struggling to get her strength and energy back. You can also feed the kittens scraps of whatever when they start eating solids, however the won’t develop as well and healthily as when fed well on a special kitten diet.

And by the way, pedigree cats start around the £300 mark and go up to around £800 + for a breeding quality kitten. That might sound outrageous, but keep in mind that pedigree cats tend to leave the homes a lot later than moggies. Moggies are usually sent to their new homes around the age of 6 weeks, whereas most pedigree cats will only leave around 12 weeks. That means LOTS more food, deworming, vaccinations, vet’s visits. Registration of pedigree etc. etc. So it all mounts up. Do not think for a moment that every single penny of a sale price pocketed.
By the way: I’ve never bred kittens myself (so it’s not like I’m taking the high ground here), but I’ve worked with enough breeders to know all of this.

Oh, and I have also actively managed to rehome many adult cats that would have otherwise been put to sleep as they had feline AIDS, serious kidney or liver problems, diabetes (all of this requiring long term commitment and lots of money) or would just to old and “ugly” to be otherwise chosen as pets - and let them spend their dying days in comfort and love.

 

[dulcie]

Also sometimes rescuing a cat does not have to be from a shelter, we took our burmese to stud to have one litter of purebreds so we could keep 2. On visiting the stud farm my dad fell in love with a snow bengal, he has a spine deformation and therefore could not be showed and he was the only kitten born in the litter so was taken away from the mother so she would come back into season, he had only ever been played with when the womans husband played with his feet under the computer in the room where he was kept. We took him home and still at 5yrs cannot cuddle him too much, he is on constant drugs for his spine and this effects his hips too (we believe this could have come about from inbreeding to produce good specimens) he attacks your feet whenever you walk past him where that was the only play he ever was given as a kitten. Our burmese had an unfortunate litter from the stud 2 being still born, 1 healthy and 1 with no diaphram who we kept alive by feeding on cimicat a formula for 3 months. I love purebred cats and some bengals can cost up to £100,000.00 but they can still be neglected and unloved even if they are not in a shelter.

Here are pics Tom (white one) is the bengal, Lilly is the grey burmese and Bailey her healthy surviving kitten (well he is 3 now) is the brown burmese !

 

[dulcie]

sorry those pics are HUGE ! its the first time i have put pics on how do i make them smaller ? reduce them on photobucket ?

thanks

 

[Bloo]

Dulcie, they are certainly gorgeous cats and I have a particular soft spot for Bengals (as you can see from my avatar). But you'll need to reduce those pics by half - they really are huge and even on my big screen I have to scroll.
(Sent you a PM)

 

[Jessica13]

No offence, but your kittens are just moggies... Im not sure what you class as a 'premium' but I would imagine its not far off what you'd pay for a pedigree cat.  To be honest, if people were willing to pay £50+ for a moggie, i'd think that they would be using it to breed, as you have with yours, and charge a similar price for the kittens. 

Maybe im just not trusting enough... 

Jessica, just to point out to you, it is very expensive to raise kittens. If done responsibly, the mother requires extra nutrition & supplements starting from the moment she is pregnant. Just think what it takes to produce all those skeletons and little bodies within her womb ! Deciding to allow one’s cat to have kittens is not free or even cheap by any means. (Yes Ninja - I know you're going to say it's better invested in a shelter and helping the cats there, but you've already pointed that out.) And once the kittens start eating solid foods (expensive special kitten food) money will start flowing too.
Yes, you don’t have to do any of this and leave it all to the mother cat – however you will only leave her malnourished and very weakened and struggling to get her strength and energy back. You can also feed the kittens scraps of whatever when they start eating solids, however the won’t develop as well and healthily as when fed well on a special kitten diet.

And by the way, pedigree cats start around the £300 mark and go up to around £800 + for a breeding quality kitten. That might sound outrageous, but keep in mind that pedigree cats tend to leave the homes a lot later than moggies. Moggies are usually sent to their new homes around the age of 6 weeks, whereas most pedigree cats will only leave around 12 weeks. That means LOTS more food, deworming, vaccinations, vet’s visits. Registration of pedigree etc. etc. So it all mounts up. Do not think for a moment that every single penny of a sale price pocketed.
By the way: I’ve never bred kittens myself (so it’s not like I’m taking the high ground here), but I’ve worked with enough breeders to know all of this.

Oh, and I have also actively managed to rehome many adult cats that would have otherwise been put to sleep as they had feline AIDS, serious kidney or liver problems, diabetes (all of this requiring long term commitment and lots of money) or would just to old and “ugly” to be otherwise chosen as pets - and let them spend their dying days in comfort and love.

Well, my pedigree cats cost me now more than £200 (admittedly it was a while ago) each from reputable breeders.. And we were offered a Bengal for £250, so i guess it depends who you know as to the price maybe? Some breeders will charge more than others.

And we have bred pedigree cats as well as moggies (an accident that i wont go into on here unless anyone desperately wants to know what happened!lol) so i know how much it costs. Some of our kittens were 1/2 Ragdoll and beautiful kittens so we could have sold them for a lot of money but we refused to just sell them off to anyone. They ONLY went to friends and family for FREE and we even kept one ourself. We have also kept in touch with all the kittens!

Anyway, Holly is happily spending her remaining years curled up on the sofa infront of the fire with no thoughts of anymore kittens, and she hasn't had any for 9 years!!

 

[Bloo]

Holly is gorgeous !

 

[Jessica13]

Yeah, she's beautiful And probably the sweetest cat you could ever meet! She's not scratched in all the years we have her, infact, she very rarely even gets her claws out unless one of the other cats is annoying her

And i think you'll agree, she's looking good for 12 years old. Purebred Ragdoll (PEDIGREE) and healthy?! Surely not!!!!

 

[Bloo]

She's the epitome of health and beauty ! B) and absolute beauty queen.

 

[Jessica13]

Awww, thank you!! I'll tell her you said that!

 

[gaya]

I just wanted to say that I feel for lady tanksalot. I am so confused after reading some of the posts in this thread. Homeless, neglected, and abused animals are an inevitable byproduct of domesticating animals. It baffles me that some can get so worked up over the health of her cats while the entire concept of having pets at all is so inherently flawed simply due to the fact that humans are so flawed. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have pets or that we shouldn’t fight for the quality of life they have but she’s hardly a poster child for irresponsible pet owners. She’s obviously been researching and conversing with her vet so I would imagine that it’s unlikely that she will allow her animals to reproduce themselves to death as that doesn’t make any sense at all.

check out blue's thread. the link she provides is a great example of irresponsible pet owners.

 

[lady_tanksalot]

OMG, I just figured out the reason behind the UK kitten shortage!!



The kittens have this funny way of turning into cats!!






Now if only people could figure out that they are merely buying the young of a cat instead of a kitten, we wouldn't have this problem....





And you know what this reminds me of? Fad breeding. Oh, you know, when some type or breed of animal becomes popular suddenly, and then the next thing you know that type is everywhere.

101 Dalmations. Suddenly, everyone and their mother breeds dalmations, and what do you know, they have a litter of puppies ready just in time for Christmas!

Babe. Wow, look how many border collies are showing up in the shelters now that people realize they aren't as easy to train as the ones in Babe seemed to be....

Lady and The Tramp. Well, at least it had The Tramp, and that whole lesson about the pound, but how many people actually went to the pound and got mix breeds instead of rushing out to get a cocker spaniel? Or a scotty? Hmm, lets think...

It's Frasier time, and look, you too can have your own Eddy!!

It's Easter, you know what that means! Bunnies!! Oh yes, bunnies for sell at flea markets, private homes, back yards! Because every kid loves a bunny at easter! Right up until it ends up at the shelter because no one realized how much hard work bunnies are. Or worse, out in the field, because hey, we all know bunnies are really just like rabbits. Right? Right??


Ahh, and that's when shelters get overloaded, because suddenly people realize babies grow up, they get bigger, they eat more, they aren't always as playful. Or hey, they used to breed a fad animal, but wow, suddenly no one is buying the puppies, and now they, and the original breeding parents, who are tired, strained, and probably not even that socialized since they were only used for their bodies, find themselves at the shelter. Because they lost their usefulness.

Most of these fad breeds aren't even bred well, backyard breeders don't often take the time to spend good money on quality animals. They are in it for the profit. And once profits go down... so do all those homeless animals.


So you see tanks, your a fad breeder! You saw the demands for kittens in your area, and now you are meeting these demands. Your selling a PRODUCT. For the amount you are charging for just ONE of your kittens, I could rescue almost FOUR from my local shelter, dewormed, shots, fixed, the works. Or, being me, I could pick four of the ugly 'too old' cats that are about this / / far from being put to sleep.

And I mean, wow, how long have you had your cats? Because if they weren't fixed as soon as you got them (considering you have the means to do it right away) then you must have been planning to breed them all along, right? Yup, your breeding on PURPOSE. It wasn't like, 'oh damn, she's pregnant, I guess I'll have to find them homes'. Nope, you knew what was going to happen. And your doing nothing to stop it.




So I ask you, when, hmm, lets say, finding yorkie puppies is hard because there aren't that many in the shelter (in the UK of course ), are you going to get a yorkie?

I'm sorry but i have no idea now what you are talking about, you really aren't making any sense at all.

You mention you could buy four kittens from a rehoming centre for the price i am selling mine for, where this figure comes from is anyones guess as i have never mentioned how much I sell my kittens for but I have mentioned that i have never as yet HAD to sell one.

I'm not in it for the money as I have already mentioned that I have always given them away to good homes.

It saddens me to say this because i always try to be as polite as i can be but, i think from now on I will be ignoring any comments you choose to make because you are talking total and utter crap.



Jessica your cats are beautiful

my pedigree cats cost me £300 each five years ago, two very beautiful unrelated maine coone kittens, cheeky and Pippin.
Unfortunatly neither lived to be more than four years old as i lost them both to genetic liver defects, hence my reluctance to have another pedigree.

 

[Bloo]

It saddens me to say this because i always try to be as polite as i can be but, i think from now on I will be ignoring any comments you choose to make because you are talking total and utter crap.

Lady T, don't worry - you have put up with this in a far better and more polite way than I would have probably been able to. As Gaya says, you've done the best you could (in your opinion), love your cats and continue to look after their well-being; and that's really all there is to it.
Enjoy your kittens and keep posting lovely pics of them

 

[FishEnthusiast]

I am so glad to hear you will not over breed your cats. What you do with your animals is your choice. I know you try to keep them healthy. That is a good thing. I am not against you having kittens. To each their own. Do realize though that even though your cats are vaccinated, if the father is sick, he can pass that illness on to the kittens because they aren't vaccinated. Also, you lost cats due to genetic illnesses. How do you know that the kittens you have will not have a genetic illness too? Not necessarily the same as the two you lost, but any kind? You don't know the father. Or fathers, as cats can be inseminated more than once. Anyway, keep doing what you are doing, and enjoy your animals.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Hey, I might as well jump in now while all seems quiet At the local shelter, you cannot get a cat. Last time we went, nearly every cat was reserved. Yes, the kittens do go very quickly. However, so do older cats. It seems the sorrier they look for themselves, the quiker they go. You can harly resist going 'Ahhhh...' when you see a scruffy moggy with only one ear or whatever, can you? Besides, we all like to have an 'oddity'. However, a cat having kittens will not affect older cats being adopted. The kitten will be going to a loving home. If the family in question hasn't already considered adopting an older cat, then it will not just because it can't get a kitten. It will keep trying.