Hi all,
I have just joined the forum. I read a lot of your posts and you seem friendly, knowledgable etc

We are the employees of a 7 month bengal queen on the active register.
I have much experiance re horses and sheep, but none re cats other than farmyard moggies.

When we lost our beloved farmcat to a speeding driver (its not slow heavy traffic that gets them, its the fast unexpected traffic that does) we swore we would not get another cat unless it would be an indoor cat.
It would have been unfair to ask a farm cat to stay in so my husband started looking at pedigrees, and fell in love with the bengal.

I argued that they were too expensive (usually his job ) but he argued that we would get our money back by letting her have kittens.
Of course, to do this one has to have a cat on the active register so it all costs far far more. (You need to remember that I have never paid for a cat in my life, and have always just had semi-feral rescue cats)
But by now we were both in love with the idea (bitten by the darned Bengal Bug) and went ahead.

Lyra, our bengal, surpassed any expectations re sweetness, intelligence, beauty, etc etc - oh, and naughtiness.

Now that she is 7 months old and will be ready to breed in a few months, we are in an overprotective flat panic re the dangers. "Oh no," we fret, "she's too little, it's too dangerous." LOL

I read a post in which someone had been advised against Bengals by thier vet. As a newby I realise that it is not my place to be opinionated, but I have to say that my vet is so in love with Lyra she comes in to visit her if she is passing - which is fine so long as I am not charged visit fees . . . - and she is known as "The Beautiful Bengal from the Benty" at the surgery. Even the horse dentist and blacksmith are utterly charmed by her and are asking questions re when she will be breeding.

The vet and I were chatting and she agreed with me that she would recommend a bengal to anyone that would like a dog - for the company, affection and interaction - but for one reason or another is unable to take it for walks. In fact, I think the bengal is more intelligent and fun than the average dog.

Couldn't agree more with your sentiments about bengals - but then we've got ten so I guess i'm just a bit biased.

Regarding breeding from your girl I hate to say it and you are obviously well experienced with animals but you may be amazed at how much it costs to get a litter especially a big one to 13 weeks. But it's a great experience never forgotten. Believe me you won't want to part with the babies..

Have you got a boy lined up for her yet? We've got our own but I well remember the horror of dropping our first girls off for mating elsewhere.

A word to the wise from the initiated - make sure as far as you can that the stud looks and is healthy, that the matings are supervised and take extreme care that the stud breeder operates to high standards of hygiene or you could be plagued with health issues later. Mating in cats is very stressful for the girl especially if she is out of her established environment and stress can open the door to infections especially if they are lurking there unseen already.

Very best of luck with it. Believe me when you've got five or six (fingers crossed) little devils going into orbit in your kitchen you won't need a t.v set to watch.

Hiya,

Welcome to our forums.

I am sure Heidi or MeeMonkey will be able to give you plenty of advice on breeding. They have breed two litters already and have more on the way this year.

Be sure to post some pictures in the gallery of your queen, for us all to see her beauty.

Myself and my husband Gavin are the proud owner of two bengal cats who are brother and sister and are called Zeus and Hestia. Who are almost 2 years old. You will see pictures of them in the Gallery forum.

Be prepared to be fully entertained and constantly on your feet for your new house member.

Hi Tanith and welcome to the forum


Infection has set in already has it?......Leopard print all-over the house?

wait until babies come along and it gets ten times worse!

Bengals are a very enchanting breed.....they've quite literally changed our lives ever since we got involved with them, Over the last 2 years we've clocked serious amounts of miles up travelling back and forth to other breeders and various cat shows, countless sleepless nights watching over our colony and wheelbarrows full of cash!

As rajique rightly pointed out above....The cost of having a litter will be considerably more than what you would have thought, especially if there's more than 4-5 kittens in the litter.....and then you have to do your best at finding safe and secure homes for the little buggers, and that's no easy task considering they're like your own flesh/fur and blood.

If your not already on any groups or in any Bengal breed clubs then I'd definitely recommend joining up with a few to keep you finger on the pulse and seek advice through.....The groups can get a little bit tetchy sometimes, In fact some of the u.s groups fly off into full scale slagging matches.....very funny to watch it going on from a distance!

But anyways you'll love having your first litter....it's the best feeling ever apart from the sleep deprivation, but you'll get over that part when a little meew sound comes from the nest and your wide-eyed again fretting over the brood.....I won't spoilt it any more, you'll have to find out for yourself.....

You've also noticed that Bengals sometimes get a rough deal from bad press and the odd opinionated vet or judge......I've heard all kinds of pathetic things said about this breed we all adore......at certain shows they treat Bengalis very differently compared with other breeds (seen with my own eyes!).....smallminds, that's the problem!

You'll have to post up a pic of your girl for us all to see

Rajique: 10 cats! Are you mad? Or perhaps your Bengal Bug disease has progressed further than mine has so far

All: Thank you for your kind welcome

Yes we are now painfully aware that we wont be making any cash out of breeding Bengals - though, tbh, the breeding part of the scheme was only to rationalise justify/cover the cost on spending so much £ on a "mere moggy" And, of course, the cost has spiralled to way beyond our modest little thoughts re this. Doh!

Did you realise that it will cost more to put Lyra to stud than it will be to put the mare to a champion andalucian stallion????!!!!! And kittens are teeny weeny, and cant even run fast! Well, actually, Bengals can - straight up walls!

Although we are unlikely to show our cats, we will be joining clubs and visiting shows to see what we should be aiming for with our cats and, who knows, maybe the infection will really take a hold and we will be desperate to show off our darling progeny in the future.

What is this business with New York banning Bengals? Is it true that you now need a wild animal licence? Is this because they genuinely believe them to be dangerous, or is it that Bengals have been caught up in some legislation to tie up loophole re dangerous hybrids such as Ligers etc? I really dont get it. Lyra is the most affectionate cat we have ever owned. We have a four year old boy in the house and he has never been even scratched by her.

Also

Lyra will be going back to her breeder who has a suitable husband waiting for her. The breeder seems to be very good, has a great reputation and is clearly humane

However . . . as I said b4, we are now in overprotective flat panic re our darling poppet (ughhh, can't believe we have become so sappy) and worry that she will be traumatised by being away from home, by having a horrid boy do horrid things to her (I tell my 14 year old girl that "boys are nasty dirty things and you must never, ever touch them ) and then there are the awful dangers of breech births etc etc.

And how will we feel when it comes time to sell the kittens? I guess that's how you can end up with 10 cats! At least, if we cant sell them, I know of at least 3 excellent homes and we would keep the rest and just quit breeding.

This is going to make you guys laugh your heads off.
We are utter utter novices and . . . we bought a silver!
How dumb is that?

Everything I have read about them since Lyra arrived is along the lines of "Not suitable for novices" "maintianing the colour is too difficult for inexperianced breeder" etc etc.

However, the breeder will mentor us and help us to make the best decisions re her husbands. She is quite tarnished, but in her favour is that she has an extremely wild face and an excellent temperament and health.

If I can figure out how to, I will put some pics of her up in the gallary for you to view.

Hi Tanith,

No, I don't think you're mad starting with a silver. We've not got one and don't intend to get one (we like brown marbleds particularly and have a snow marbled stud boy). Whatever your opinions about silvers vs BSH /ASH, the GCCF / TICA thing etc etc they are all beautiful cats and my personal feeling is that the absolute rock solid bottom line in cat breeding has got to be producing well-mannered happy, healthy kittens and finding lovely forever homes for them as loved pets.

Ideally kittens should have good conformation etc and be close to the breed standard. But let's be honest, the cat couldn't care less could it? I'm sure if you've got it right your breeder will help with good choices. If it's one of their own kittens coming back for a mating they will be looking for the best outcome.

When all's said and done the very worst scenario is where people breed without any real thought in the hope of making buckets of cash (which they don't). You wouldn't believe some of the stories i've heard eg we recently had someone on the phone trying to sell us five active breeding cats which he'd bought second hand including one girl literally just about to kitten.

From your posts I can tell that you are about as far away from this kind of individual as it's possible to get and I really wish you the very best of luck with your girl.

Before anyone on the forum jumps on me from a great height I should point out that yes I do think we should all produce the very best kittens we can and yes it does matter that the breed advances and improves. Less good cats isn't the end of the world though - unless they're sold for breeding ..which is a whole other ballgame.

In my opinion the very worst thing for the breed is bengals with bad attitude. Which is why in my opinion people like Tanith who love their cats as pets first and will produce well mannered kittens are so important.

By the way Tanith, we are mad - and i'm sorry to say you seem to be following us down the slippery slope. Good luck.