The temperament of our breeding males and females is hugely important to us. At this stage in our breeding, the majority of our breeding cats have been bred, born and raised in our house alongside the chaos of normal living and young children. Whilst a kitten's temperament is largely environmental, genetics from their parents play a role. We therefore carefully select kittens from our litters to keep back for future breeding. From a very young age, we can tell what kind of personality that kitten will have, whether that is outgoing and has no fear or slightly cautious. All of our kittens are at least F5 which gives them a more domesticated temperament. This makes it much more likely that they will adapt to a domesticated home life than earlier generations. We have had previous studs and queens with a shy nature and we have found that this is passed onto their offspring despite our socialisation approach. These studs and queens have been taken out of our breeding program. Whilst we take all precautions to carefully select temperament in our breeding cats and with our socialisation approach, we will still have the very occasional slightly cautious kitten. These kittens take a little more time to adjust to a new environment but eventually they will be no less loving, affectionate and cuddly than their more outgoing, no fear siblings.

 

Choosing a male or a female?

We have so many enquiries about male kittens as one of the most common misconceptions is that males are more loving than females. This is simply not the case at all. We have the most affectionate females in our breeding program and likewise for our males. All of our breeding animals will quite happily sit on your lap in front of the TV in the evening purring away, sometimes with the occasional dribble. The only difference we have seen in our male and female kittens is purely their size, males are generally bigger than females. Both males and females can either be cautious analysts or boisterous reckless hooligans, or somewhere in between of course. There is no rule of thumb with males and females and is just down to individual personality. We very rarely have shy kittens due to our breeding lines and our socialisation approach but if we do have a shy kitten in the litter, we find that this is due to sibling rivalry and once placed in their new home, they are a different kitten. Our kittens are neutered at a very young age so hormones do not get a chance to influence their personality.