I am visiting the breeder today to see the 3 week old kittens from 2 litters born on the same day. I was wondering at what age in weeks do kittens start developing their personality? And at what age did you pick out your Bengal from its litter if you got them as a kitten?

The Breeder I decided on is local so I can come visit pretty much every other week until the kitten is ready to go home in a couple of months.

I have first pick, but I think I will have to decide on which kitten I want within the next 3 weeks (when the kitten is 6 weeks) since there are others on the breeder's waiting list. I think its preferable that I decide sooner than later because the breeder is willing to expose my pick to her friendly large family dog more than its sibling knowing that I have a medium/large dog at home.

Yea, it's kind of tough because the longer you wait, probably the more representative the kitten will be in terms of their eventual adult behaviors, but on the other hand, the longer you wait, the less opportunity you have to select a cat. I think I made my decision to get Serafina and Gaga at about 5 weeks or so if I'm remembering right, and I got Neytiri sight unseen (since her breeder is in another state). This was my first time dealing with the whole purbred cat world though, so I didn't really know what I was doing. I think if I were to do this again, I'd put a higher premium on screening breeders before I even saw kittens, and then go and visit the kittens and see which ones seemed to connect with me best, and make my decision based on that, and I'd do it at an early age so that I had as wide a choice as possible.

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The little monsters 3

It is a tough decision as the kittens do change as they get older. I don't know that you can determine much with a 3-week old kitten. It may be more like 6 to 8 weeks. Not only do their personalities develop, but their pelt will change over the weeks as well. While you want to get the most well-adjusted kitten, you may just have to select one and hope for the best. If the kittens are handled by humans and are allowed to interact with the family members, the litter of kittens should be sweet tempered and able to tolerate being handled. So much depends on the momma kitty and the breeder's environment. Many will keep the momma and kittens locked away for the first couple of weeks for their own protection and for the bonding with the mommy. I'm sure one baby will stand out in your mind immediately.

As for the dog ... truly, I hope your breeder does not introduce them until your kitty is at least 8 weeks old. Momma is really protective of her babies until they are weaned and there is no guarantee that your breeder is going to do the "introduction" to her dog the proper way. While bengals are supposed to like dogs, many do and many never will. It's really a roll of the dice. A little kitten may be terrified and traumatized by a dog who simply excited and wants to play. In other instances, they may sniff each other and walk away. You just don't know. I think I would try to be there when this introduction happens and witness the result. A traumatized kitten is going to be harder to handle, especially if she is terrified of the breeder's dog and you bring the kitty home to your dog.

On the other hand, things could go swimmingly well.

I chose Magic at 3 weeks as when I went to see the litter he came up to me and it was decided.

Pearl on the other hand was completely different as I rang the breeder up to see if they had any snow girls and they had one ready to go as they were let down on the buyer of her and another ready in a couple of weeks.

I walked in to where she was and she was the only one left all by herself, she ran full speed up to us meowing, she was so friendly and she was 14 weeks old so we took her home there and then.

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Clare
Magic (brown spotted boy born 31 March 2012)
Pearl (seal Lynx Point girl born 1 October 2015)
Bristol, UK

We chose ours when she was about 5 weeks old. We went to see a few from the same litter and whilst all other kittens were fussing over their mum, Katniss was the one who came up to us and just sat down looking at us like saying "yes, you will be having me".

I agree, it seems the kitten chooses you and not the other way around.

Thank you everyone for the reply! I think we picked our girl. I attached two photos. First one is the girl we picked, and the second photo is her brother who I wanted really bad - I mean he looks show quality already minus the rib bar at such a young age - but my SO wants a girl and he's very adamant about having only girl pets .

I know personality is most important but after seeing them I know we won't be able to tell at this point.

We saw the 3 week old kittens from two litters very briefly to just see the coat because the breeder did not want to take them away from their mother for too long. We also did not handle the kitten, which is probably a good thing for their age. Its quite stressful for them and the mother the breeder said. We can interact more with the kitten when they are 5 weeks or older. Since we have first pick between the two litters I choose the best girl from Queen Crystal , who comes from champion bloodline (SierraGold It's Vegas Baby is her grandfather) and is quite gorgeous and a larger female. The father is King Mufasa who the breeder does not own, I don't have much information except his SBT # is SBT 110211 048. I couldn't find anything about him on the bengal pedigree website, but I did see that he is a stud for many breeders around southern California.

Yes she wouldn't socialize the kitten with the dog until after they are weaned and have their first vet visit.

I am very confident in this breeder in socializing the kittens and being reputable. I met breeder's queens and her one stud she owns, they were all super confident and friendly cats. Now its just a waiting game for the next two months until we can take her home.

I've just spent some time researching "King Mufasa" and have found nothing (except King Mufasa of PrideRock which is an ALC born in 1995). Crystal's pedigree is on their website and I've confirmed that she is an F9. It appears you had a good experience at the breeders and your breeder is correct. The kittens should be handled very little at 3 weeks. I did look at the kittens on their website and they are stunning babies.

Know that Bengalpedigrees.com has cats added all the time. I'd spent months searching for a couple of Aluren cats and found nothing until they finally turned up on that website. I currently have King Mufasa as an UNK in my database but will go through them again eventually and see if I can find any updates.

I do have IstarSavannah Mufasa in my database. I was searching for King Mufasa, not realizing they put King in front of the sires. I show Mufasa is an F7. Bengal-Data.com will show him as an F9, I believe. I'm basing mine on the fact that SnowTops Snow Flake is an ALC, and Bengal-Data.com shows her as an UNK bengal. I found a website where SnowTops Snow Flake was listed as an ALC. Her offspring has an A1T registration which usually indicates an F1.

Once you register your kitty with TICA, you can order a 3 or 5-generation certified pedigree. You can put your bengal into the bengalpedigree database only if all the previous cats are in there. Many on Raiden's mother's side were missing, so I had to enter each of those going back to the first one missing and bring it all back out to where I could put Raiden in there. It is really not that difficult and the website will let you know if you're putting in a duplicate cat. Note that the bengalpedigree database does not show F generations. Bengal-Data.com does.

They started their website after I started my database and we disagree on many of the cats because they rely on breeders information (although they downloaded all the cats from BengalPedigree -- and there are a lot of errors there as well). I'm doing mine manually every step of the way. And I do try to research to see if I can find out the unknowns. Every single bengal goes back to at least ONE ALC. We may never know what F generation Gogees/Nola Sir Prize Pick is, but I am fairly certain the mother they are showing did not deliver kittens when she was 6 months old unless the TICA registration number is wrong. It is possible, but most queens do not go into heat at 4 months and a responsible breeder would probably not allow a queen to have a litter that early.

TICA registration numbers for F4 generations and above start with SBT. The next six numbers are the birthdate of the cat 032507 (for Raiden) and the last three is the number of the cat registered for that birthdate. Raiden's is 095, meaning he was the 95th cat registered with that date of birth.

I realize many bengal owners don't understand the system nor do they honestly care. It's just something that I do care about and want to help out those who also want information on their bengals. I am not saying my information is 100% correct, but I do try and double check my research and match up with Bengal-Data.com. I've found hundreds of TICA certified pedigrees online, however, there are some instances where the 5th generation has a cat I cannot locate, which can throw off the F generation of the cat.

If Mufasa is an F7, then your kitty would be an F8. My work with the database will NEVER be finished as I will continue to verify information and add bengals.

There is an old topic on this forum that popped up as a Google result where they discussed the F generations. I don't think Suntouched posts anymore, but is a breeder of cats. They asked if a breeder should know the F generations of their cats. I'm sure it was a bigger deal with the earlier generations, but once you hit F12, I don't know. I have yet to find an F13 bengal. But, many breeders will take an F10 queen and breed her with an F7 stud to start the F8's again. I'm sure I'll run across an F13 at some point. In the end, a cat is a cat! LOL