Whether your looking for advice, or have advice or tips to share.

This thread is for members to share information on the bengal breed and breeding them properly.

Whether it is your first time breeding bengals or you have been a experience breeder for years. The more we educate people on breeding to improve the breed, the better hopes the bengal cat has in the future.

I recently bought my first bengal.He is 5 motnhs old and marbled.I am interested in breeding him but have never breed anything before.If anyone could send me some good advice or information I would appreciate it.

Best way to get into breeding, as far as I understand it, is to get a female and then "buy in" the male to do the business, as keeping an unaltered male Bengal can be a nuisance, for instance, he will spray everywhere and if he smells a female on heat close by, he will do ANYTHING to get out....

Hi

Is your boy on the active register? You can usually tell from how your breeder advertised him. If you bought him as a pet you can be pretty sure that he's not on the active register. Your breeder should have given you a pedigree and a GCCF (Governing Council of the Cat Fancy) Transfer slip when you purchased your cat, you can also tell by looking at the transfer slip, it should state if he is active or not. If he's not active you shouldn't breed from him. If you do breed from him the GCCF will not let his kittens be registered at all.

There seams to be 3 classes of pedigree cat: Pet, Breed and Show. The class is reflected in the price. Pets usually go from around ?400+ and Breeding cats can go from ?1000+ so you do have to pay for the privilege of owning a breeding cat.

However, just because you have bought a 'Pet' cat it does not mean all is lost. You should contact your breeder, they may be prepared to put your cat on the active register but be warned, this will come with a fee and only the breeder of your cat has the right to do this.

There are people who breed from cats that aren't on the active register but this is frowned upon greatly and these people soon become branded as ?Back Yard Breeders?. It is also against the GCCF rules.

As Gavin mentioned is his earlier post, most novice breeders start with owning a queen and send her away to be 'Serviced'. It is hard work owning a stud cat. Firstly, you have to be sure that there is sufficient 'work' in your area for him; I'm told they require at least 5 girls per year. Stud cats are also very smelly, they will spray anything and everything in site, and I?ve yet to come across a breeder who keeps their stud cat indoor, you'll see what I mean once your boy reaches maturity!

My significant other and I have recently bought a breeding queen and we've been researching breeding since January this year. If you are serious about breeding then I suggest you get yourself along to a few cat shows and talk to other breeders, have a look on the internet at some of the web sites of other breeders and also take a look at the <a href='http://www.gccfcats.org' target='_blank'>GCCF</a> website.

Finally.......Good luck

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Heidi

Thank you for the information.I didn't think breeding would be so stressful. My boy is active.I recieved the pedigree with him but not the GCCF.He is registered with the TICA.I would really only want to breed him once then depending on how things went I would decide what to do from there.Right now I am working with him so that We can be ready for his first show in september.Hopefully all goes well there.

Hi

GCCF is just the UK's version of TICA, I assumed you where in the UK, don't know why. Anyway, you have an active boy so your first hurdle is out of the way.

Going to the show's will provide you with a great opportunity to let people know that your boy is a stud, also, if he does well, you'll have no problems finding him those girls that he needs to keep him happy (This is assuming your offering him for open stud...i.e. other breeders queens and not just your own). There is a <a href='http://www.bengalstudlist.co.uk' target='_blank'>Bengal Stud List</a> in the UK, You should try and get you boy on something similar and advertise him on your own web site (if you have one).

You should think about building some kind of outdoor enclosure. Most stud owners provide an enclosure that can be split into two separate areas. When you introduce a queen to your stud, you shouldn't just put them in together straight away. They need to be introduced slowly and initially kept separate but in a way that allows them to see and smell each other (this is usually done by separating the enclosure with some kind of wire divide). After a day or so the divide can be removed to allow them to meet (and mate!). If you are accepting other breeders queens for your boy, you will be responsible for the well being of those queens whilst they are with you so make sure any facilities you have are VERY secure!

If your thinking about having your own queens too you really should apply for a Breeders Prefix. When kittens are born, the owner of the queen is the recognised breeder and thus responsible for registering the kittens. I'm not sure about TICA but I know the GCCF will give the kittens a GCCF prefix if the breeder doesn't have one (this doesn't look v.professional on the pedigree IMO)

However, for your first attempt I don't think you'll have to go to the extremes noted above. If your lucky, you may find someone who's prepared to take your boy rather than you taking their girl. This would be a lot easier if your still undecided about the whole breeding thing, however, if you do decide to go ahead with it you really should consider what I've mentioned above.

We are in a similar position as you (except we have girls not boys). We have never been involved in breeding so we're going to give it ago and if it doesn't work out we'll get the girls altered and keep them as pets.....God loves a tryer

Anyway hope this has helped
Regards
Heidi

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Heidi

Greetings,

Sorry, it's been a while since I've been able to get to a computer for enough time to actually write anything, and I hate to come back after my hiatus with a post like this...

Not trying to be rude here, but if I don't come out and say it, you may go through heartbreak. I promise some less negative things at the end of this post
Breeding is hard work. It's extremely expensive, and the most trying experience I can think of involving animals.

I've been working with Bengals for four years now (as a breeder) and have spent thousands upon thousands of dollars. Firstly, veterinarian bills alone have run over $1,000.00 a year so far, not to mention food, litter, equipment, and a good chunk of time, secondly, a good breeding cat with the right bloodlines, conformation, personality and coat costs upwards of $1,700.00, the really good ones run $2,500.00 and up. I have three cats right now, one altered retired breeder girl, and two younger girls that will (hopefully) have nice kittens next year.

Membership fees to TICA, TIBCS, (or the UK versions of such) also have to be kept up to date.

Having been at this for four years, researching it for over a year before that, and doing as much study into genetics and bloodlines as I can handle, I have so far produced one live kitten. Not for lack of trying mind you.

The altered female I have I bought as a breeder four years ago. That one cat suffered a broken leg (from falling off of a coffee table) ate a penny ($700.00 surgery to retreive 1 cent) came down with pyometra twice (infection of the uterus caused by a hormonal imbalance) had two reabsorbed pregnancies, and when she finally was pregnant with six kittens, five of them died, the first dying in my hands as I rushed them to the animal hospital at 3am.

EVERY breeder has kittens that die. They just don't talk about it.

Stud fees for a good cat to breed your female to run upwards of $1,000.00, and sometimes a kitten back also. Show fees for showing your cats are around $100.00 per cat per show, not including hotel and food for you, or gas. Even female cats will spray when they are in heat, and the noise they make will keep you up for weeks.

Advertising, website design, cattery setup, screening new homes, all of this takes time and money. And seeing the only kitten ever to be born to your favorite cat go to a new home, while it felt good, broke my heart completely.

Also, I end up answering many, many emails a week, refering people to other breeders because I don't have any kittens.

When a window screen is broken out, and your two top queens (two cats walk out window, $6,000.00 walks out of my house) escape for a day (luckily they came back on their own) the stress is unbeleivable.

My freinds and family think that I'm absolutely crazy (I believe being a Bengal breeder automatically makes you certifiable), and continually tell me to sell my cats and quit.

Why do I still do it? They purr. And it makes it all better. And when I see them, it takes my breath away.
And I'm a very stubborn girl (aries).

Sorry about the long post, and all the negativity, but it would be unkind of me not to warn you. If after all that you still want to do this, maybe you've got the right stuff.

And if ever you need someone to listen, or a shoulder to cry on, I'm a good listener, and you can email me. The Bengal community is absolutely full of some of the most wonderful people on earth, and they have gotton me through the rough times.

Crikey, I think I'll just stick with running a forum :blink:

When we first decided to breed, we went to a few shows and "ALL" of the breeders we spoke to told us about the expense! And boy is it true.

So far, we have spent over ?4.5k on 2 quality queens, our cat run, breeders prefix with GCCF, insurance (which doesn't cover for pregnancy related stuff), joining the BCC, BCCGB, OCBCC and TIBCS, showing equipment, micro-chipping and books.

We still need to build a maternity unit and put together our web site, (fortunately I'm a programmer by trade so I'm going to have a stab at it myself!), although I'm guessing that domain name registration and hosting is going to cost in excess of ?100+. We are also looking for a little run-around-van to get us to and from shows.

We have been quoted ?400 - ?500 for stud fees from two reputable breeders ready for next spring.

Feeding, worming, fleeing and jabs are standard procedures for any pet owner so the cost for those doesn?t really count.

So, to sum it up we have spent a FORTUNE and all this since January this year, and there are so many other things that we want to buy but just can't budget for ATM.....I keep wondering if I should have just spent the money on a conservatory

We have yet to experience our first litter and must admit we are both as nervous as hell :unsure: Have been told to put a lump some of money away for vet fees (since the insurance companies won't cover pregnancy) and warn our vet about expected delivery dates. My niece is currently training to be a vet nurse so hopefully she'll be on stand-by as well.

If we do have a successful litter, the costs are going to start again jabs/food/advertising/registering etc, etc. Not to mention the amount of Time we are going to have to put in.

HOWEVER, it?s something both me and my fianc? have always wanted to do. We both adore animals, I've always had pets: horses, cats, dogs, hamsters, chickens, fish, birds and more. My parents are both animal lovers and as a kid I?ll never forget my mum telling me that as a child she preferred pets to friends as pets where always loyal and dependable???and that?s so true

Heidi

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Heidi

If it's of any use, I use <a href='http://http://www.123reg.co.uk/' target='_blank'>123 Reg</a> for domain names and <a href='http://www.ripplehost.com/' target='_blank'>Ripplehost</a> for hosting, both are quite cheap and you could set up a webpage (as this one was) for less that 20 quid B)

I used 123Reg to register both <a href='http://www.bengalcatcam.co.uk' target='_blank'>Bengal Cat Cam .CO.UK</a> and <a href='http://www.bengalcatcam.com' target='_blank'>Bengal Cat Cam .COM</a> and your right, domain registration is cheap, however, I had guessed hosting was gonna cost a lot more but thanks for the tip! Any idea on cost for registering a domain with the search engines? I still need to do this for the cat cam?

We can't register a domain name for our web site until our GCCF Prefix has been approved (should be sometime Oct/Nov) for some reason It takes 6 months to be granted a prefix, god knows what they do with the application :huh:

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Heidi

Generally free to get your site on a search engine, but getting to to return a result on the right query terms is a bit of a science - we are listed on google, but it doesn't seem to have indexed any of the pages, so unless you search for "bengalcatforums.com" it doesn't come up..... I should look into it more, so we can get more people on here!

Yahoo on the other hand, I filled in the free request, but seems to have got nowhere....I suspect you now have to pay to be listed on the "fast track" registration or whatever they call it, or you just don't make it at all

But Heidi, TICA is in the UK and a lot of UK Breeders now register their kittens TICA, lol:))

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<img src='http://www.tuhinabengals.com/images/logos/bengalcatlogo.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' /><a href='http://www.tuhinabengals.com' target='_blank'>Tuhina Bengal Cats</a><br><span style='color:blue'>Members of:- TICA/TIBCS/TIBBA/BCCGB/NBA/CATTICA<br>International Committee Member of TIBCS<br>President of CatTica (TICA UK)<br>Secretary of NBA<br>Web Design - www.tuhinawebservices.com</span>

Hi Heidi
Regarding insurance companies I would recommend Scottish pet for your breeding queens, they are the only company who WILL cover you for breeding problems in your cats, ie c sections etc as long as it is needed to preserve the health of the queen which of course a c section is:)

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<img src='http://www.tuhinabengals.com/images/logos/bengalcatlogo.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' /><a href='http://www.tuhinabengals.com' target='_blank'>Tuhina Bengal Cats</a><br><span style='color:blue'>Members of:- TICA/TIBCS/TIBBA/BCCGB/NBA/CATTICA<br>International Committee Member of TIBCS<br>President of CatTica (TICA UK)<br>Secretary of NBA<br>Web Design - www.tuhinawebservices.com</span>

Hi Dawn

OK, OK?that was a bad choice of words. The point I was ?attempting? to make, (albeit not very well ) is that if you buy a kitten from the UK, it will no doubt be GCCF registered, it may also be TICA registered, but TICA registrations are still a minority in the UK. However...we will be applying for a TICA prefix (just so you don?t think we're biased )

I hope you don't mind, but since we?re on the topic?(and you are President of CatTica "TICA UK" ) I thought I'd grill you for some info :rolleyes:

Does a cat have to be TICA registered before you can show it at a TICA show? Also, I haven?t checked but don?t the GCCF have some kind of rule where by GCCF registered cats can only be shown at GCCF shows? The reason I?m asking is because I?ve just had a quick look at CatTica?s 1st UK show and would like to enter one of our cats . If I applied to register her with TICA this week, do you think registration would be completed in time for the show? Also, we are already showing her at GCCF shows, would this be a problem?

Heidi

P.S Thanks for the tip on Insurance, is this a company you use yourself? I've always used PetPlan SuperCat policy and they've proved to be v.good (at least they have been for pet cats). I don't like the idea of taking out a policy with a company that puts any kind of limit on how much you can claim. Do you know if Scottish Pet do this?

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Heidi