India's Kittens: Opera [3]

Irina says: Our Maine Coon cattery is very new, small, and home-based in Ukraine. This is a family cattery because I and my husband Andrew are both real cat fanciers. Our first pedigreed cat joined our family in 1994 -- Siberian cat Boise who has been living with us during 13 years. We were showing our Boise for some time, but we were not involved in breeding because we had to work a lot to make our living. We don't take breeding as a business or a basis of income, this is a hobby and a rather expensive hobby sometimes, but now we work at home and pay much attention to our cats.

We have decided to start our own cattery, because we are in love with Maine Coons and feel happy being surrounded by their long flowing tails, splendid coats, grand whiskers, and beautiful voices. Our aim is to breed beautiful, healthy, large, harmonious, well-socialized Maine Coon cats of a best possible type with a nice personality. We plan few litters and don't plan many cats in our cattery because we want to give our coonies as much attention as possible.

We visit cat shows when possible and try to get to know more about the breed and its standard. I study genetics and physiology of cats. I've finished two months felinology courses with a big program including some extracts from genetics, veterinary, grooming, cattery organisation, felinology systems, cat show rules, breed standards etc. And I keep on learning because felinology is a serious study and breeding is not just a reproduction but also special knowledge and experience. We have raised our first Maine Coon girl India under the guidance of an experienced breeder Olena Tometskaya.

In December, India brought eight kittens! Opera was smallest of them, so we had to feed her with a bottle in addition to her mother's feeding. Opera never fights with her brothers and sisters for mother's milk. She prefers to be hugged. :-) Opera has a nice personality, and she is a very friendly and curious kitten. She was the first of our kittens who began to eat meat and now she has a rather good weight. It looks like we've found a new good home for Opera in Kiev, and she will go there in March after all needed vaccinations.