Hey folks,

I live in Scotland and would appreciate any help/advice/experience any hobby breeders may have for me.

If I was to decide to try and breed a litter of kittens from my F3 girl (not in the immediate future, she is only 7 months old and hasn't come into call yet, so likely it'll be another year or so)....

On a practical note, I need to roughly work out the initial start up costs so that I can put aside money needed for these costs, and also to allow for any emergency treatment.

What sort of genetic vulnerabilities should I have her tested for before I considered breeding from her?

The breeder I got her from gave me the option to pay an additional fee prior to putting her on the active register. She has been most helpful and would be able to keep me right with regard to finding her an appropriate mate, and I would also have the cost of hiring one of her studs to consider.

I also have an F2 boy in my home, who will be neutered soon. My cats are the best of friends, and I wonder how this would change if I allowed my girl to have kittens. Would this cause problems for them? Perhaps I would need to separate them?

My cats are indoor cats, raised with my 2 children who are 7 & 9 years old. My cats have quickly become accustomed to family life, lots of people coming and going, hence they are pretty well socialised cats, and therefore any future kittens should be too.

I've read a few posts about breeding on this forum, and many of them seem to develop into threads which contain the words "don't do that it's madness", etc. I'm not looking for that sort of response folks. It's early days for me, everyone has to start somewhere, so please do not be critical.

I'm a way off making any decisions about whether or not to breed from her, so am just looking for honest, impartial advice from those who know how, in order to make a well informed decision myself.

Thanks in advance for those of you who may be able to help.

Hiya, have a look at the link to BBUKU in my signature, that covers HCM & Pkdef in nice detail and easy to understand

Thanks xx

Yes HCM and PK defic are definitely necessary.
As for messing up the relationships between your cats, I would say EG cats can be difficult, many tend to change once adult, becoming territorial and have challenging behaviours. If that coincides with your girl calling and spreading her hormones about the place and also becoming territorial, especially once she has kittens, then you may have a difficult relationship on your hands, both between your F2 and your girl and even maybe between your EGs and your family.
As she is 7 months now, most would be thinking of breeding her at about 1 year old, after scanning her for HCM and testing for Pk defic.

Entire cats are not just pets that have kittens. They are often very different. Bengals tend to spray or pee and can also poo inappropriately, both males and females if left entire, and relationships amongst entire cats can be very feisty, so you will need an outdoor pen for your girl I would say. Entire cats on heat, will also bolt through doors in an urge to get mated, so as your childen are small and may leave doors open, then an outdoor pen will keep her from getting out and being mated by local toms. An outdoor pen will give you a place to put one or the other if they do end up fighting.
Some breeds do very well in the house as breeding cats and do not mess the house or fight, but Bengals are not usually amenable to this. As she is an EG and entire then your chances of her not spraying amd peeing are probably low, IMO.
The other problem you may encounter is that most public studs will not accept EG girls. It may be that your breeder may be able to persuade someone to do this or provide you with a stud herself, but it can be an issue. Starting breeding with an F3 will be a bit of a steep learning curve, I am surprised your breeder would give you breeding rights to an EG as a complete novice to tell the truth.

It is not impossible, far from it, but you need to be aware that breeding Bengals and especially EGs is not really easy and needs careful planning. Make sure you are well up on kittening and looking after young kittens. Vets tend not to be very good at labour in cats and dealing with young kittens - they leave that to breeders. They are great if the cat needs a Caesarian or has any medical issue, but as for the nitty gritty of labour and bringing up kittens you will find you are on your own. Many things happen quickly and the life of your cat and her kittens may depend on your decisions, so make sure you know what you are doing.

Elaine and Claire have answered some of your questions for you. I will add some of my own experiences for you as it may help you to make your mind up.

I breed Tonkinese. I have 4 adult Tonkinese and 1 Bengal. I had two entire tonkinese girls (one is now neutered) and the rest (boy and girl tonk and boy bengal) are neutered.

My bengal hates kittens and hates the tonk girls (entire ones). He is scared of them really. The neutered male tonk also dislikes the kittens and so this has made him dislike his sister and niece (the two entire girls).

Pippa, the youngest mom has taken to attacking the boy cats if they dare to be in the same room as the kittens. Hence this has made some logistical issues int he house. She is really quite fierce and aggressive!

Consequently we have problems and may not breed again as things stand. Calling girls seem to upset the boys a lot!!

_________________
Lollo

It is generally why many breeders gravitate towards outdoor accomodation for breeding cats, if they want to keep breeding, even if they previously thought they would have one big happy feline family and disagreed with animals being kept outside.
Some get into real trouble keeping multiple breeding cats and kittens in the house.

For anyone wishing to breed in the future, think of the maximum number of cats you can accommodate in your home.
To be honest, then it probably needs at least room for 10 cats for a one or two female breeding project.
If you have say 3 pets, then you have 7 spaces left. You cannot discount pets in your calculations as they actually take up room and if they do not get on with the breeding cats their actual need may be one space or it may be nearer two each, due to the space they need assigned.
Most cats have around 4-5 kittens, so that leaves one spare space if only one litter is around, OK small kittens take up little space but they grow fast and really need a whole room to themselves due to risks or infection and due to safety, especially if the complications of spare, often hostile pets, are in the equation.
As breeding means there are always hangers on, ie kittens you want to keep, retired breeders you cannot or do not want to rehome then from 10 spaces there are none left. It is therefore very easy to get over run, so planning accomodation is really important before landing yourself with lots of breeding cats and assuming they will all just mix easily in a smallish space.

Wow folks, thanks for your input.

There really is a lot for me to think over. Honestly, it does sound like hard work, and I'm not yet sure that I have enough space or money to manage it.... So I will not be rushing into it. Thanks too for the info about early generations in breeding, honestly I was quite ignorant to how this may differ and present other challenges.

My breeder has been really helpful to me so far with other Bengal questions I've had and we are in regular contact as I keep her up do date with how my cats are doing. She has told me that there is a lot of hard work in breeding these cats, and I'd be on a steep learning curve. Perhaps I'll try to go and spend a couple of weekends with her sometime and see how she works things, get some experience of the work involved, learn more about it. She's a few hundred miles away, but I think the travelling would be worth the knowledge I'd gain. She is a larger scale breeder, so would be different to me, but I'm sure I'd get some useful insight. I think there is another breeder closer to home, so I may try contacting them too for advice, if they are willing to help.

It is my intention to build the kittens an outdoor enclosure from the back of the house so they can enjoy fresh air and some more space too.

Thanks again folks, for now I'm going to enjoy their kittenhood. Xxx

That makes sense.

When I picked up my girl from the breeder, she showed me all the cats. She had an EG girl who refused to come out of the enclosure the stud was in. They weren't successful mating and she became vicious every time the breeder tried to take her out of the enclosure and cried endlessly when the boy was gone. Such a strange situation, but after remembering that, what you say makes a lot of sense. Thanks for explaining!

Flick was speyed yesterday. Feel kind of sad in one way, but know this has been the best thing to do for her. x