Can Maine Coons breed with regular cats?

Some people want to know whether Maine Coons can mate with any other domestic cat including random-bred domestic cats and, of course, the answer is a very positive Yes, biologically speaking. This is because the Maine Coon is itself a domestic cat with exactly the same DNA as any other moggy. There is absolutely no biological barrier to this glamorous purebred cat mating with any other domestic cat.

Image: MikeB.

However, that said, you don't want to do it because the offspring will not be Maine Coon cats. They will be hybrids which are euphemistically called 'Maine Coon mix' cats. In short, these are moggies because the purebred cats have to be purebred and registered with a cat association and have a pedigree.

What's the point of mating a Maine Coon with a moggy? And, my argument is positively supported by the major cat associations because their breed standards do not permit what they call "outcrosses". Below is a screenshot from the be standard of The International Cat Association (TICA). "Outcrosses" is a reference to a purebred Maine Coon mating with any cat which is not a Maine Coon which includes moggies and any other purebred cat of different breeds.

That, therefore, is the answer to the question. If you mate a Maine Coon with a regular cat you lose all or at least some of those precious appearance characteristics that the public love so much including the large, lynx-tipped ears, the large size of the cat, the shaggy coat and that solid, square muzzle, all of which distinguish this cat from others. 

These have been developed over more than a century of selective breeding. You could pick a regular cat for a Maine Coon to mate with, which looked like a Maine Coon, but you would still end up with a non-purebred cat which could only be described as a moggy.