Your Maine Coon Guide

Yes, all domestic cats including the Maine Coon cat are invasive species in America. And you may have heard that, in Poland, Polish scientists have declared the domestic cat an invasive species in their country. That is stupid. If you declare the domestic cat invasive species you have to declare the human an invasive species as well because they both originate in places other than Poland and America. And there must come a time when an invasive species no longer becomes an invasive species because they been living in that place for long enough to describe them as part of the ecosystem. You can't call the Maine Coon an invasive species. Photo in public domain. The general consensus is that the Maine Coon cat originates in the medium-longhaired cats that were brought over with the settlers to the American continent from Europe around 400 years ago. Up until about the middle of the 1800s the Maine Coon cat was a random-bred barn cat. They were handsome creatures and somebody decided to...

Newborn red tabby Maine Coon. Screenshot. The newborn kitten meows will soften the hardest heart. This little ginger tabby is growing up to be one of those Maine Coons that has a slightly human face. A Yoda face. OMG he is cute. He is about as cute as a kitten can get. If you want to see a human-faced Maine Coon please click this link. As you may know the ginger tabby cat coat is sex linked. They are mostly males . RELATED:  Are male, orange tabby cats the friendliest ? Please click the play button twice to get the video to play 😎. Or you may be lucky and it works with one click....

I am just skimming through Maine Coon cats for sale on the UK Gumtree website while typing this to see what people are trying to sell to the public and the result is frankly shocking. There is no attempt to reassure the owner that the supposed Maine Coon cat has a pedigree and is registered with a cat Association. There is nothing to suggest that these cats are genuine, purebred Maine Coons.  The first one is definitely not a Maine Coon and looks like a regular brown tabby (see advert below). The seller is asking £200 for a quick sale. They want a quick sale because they are not selling a Maine Coon cat. I would bet my bottom dollar that this is a misrepresentation and the seller wants to make a fast buck in selling a random bred cat. The seller's grasp of the English language is very poor. I don't know whether this indicates that this person is not British and is perhaps an immigrant to the country. Thais is a possibility but I don't know. Here is part of the advert: Don...

This is a video of a ginger tabby Maine Coon getting younger! No idea why it was done this way but it does provide viewers with a comparison over a relatively short time frame of 10 weeks to 7 months. The cat is polydactyl which is not uncommon in Maine Coons as you are probably aware.  What is remarkable is that this video has been viewed almost 11 million times. Not worth it. The video does not deserve that number of viewings 😎.  My personal viewpoint, obviously. But TikTok artificially increase viewings by playing the video as soon as you bring it up and their videos are on a loop. Because of these tricks to boost viewings what would have been a couple of views becomes five. Click on the play button 2x please! 

For international visitors who are unsure, Wales is in the UK. And the Maine Coon Cat Club which was established in 1985 and is affiliated to the GCCF (the premier cat Association in the UK) have three purebred, rescue Maine Coon cats up for adoption.  Aurora The first one lives in Swansea and the owner is giving up their Maine Coon whose name is Aurora because her resident cats will not accept her and she will not accept them. The owner feels that Aurora would be happier as an only cat.  She is looking for the best home possible for Aurora. She is a three-year-old, brown tabby-and-white. She describes her as a little nervous until she gets to know you. She tends to hide but will get over it and is happy to be cuddled and enjoys a brush. Aurora needs time and attention and my guess is she would like to be in a home where the owner is around all the time and where it is quiet and calm. If you want to adopt Aurora you will have to pay a rehoming donation of £200 to the club. Pip...

The answer is very much a YES! But it does depend upon where you live and whether your cat is trained to walk on a lead. You are not going to go walking with your Maine Coon cat unless they are on a lead. But the point is this: we see lots of domestic cats nowadays on leads. In fact, we see lots of Maine Coon cats trekking with their cat caregiver. And I think that taking your Maine Coon cat trekking is the best way to take him or her walking. The picture below highlights that. Maine Coon 'Lotus' on a leash in the countryside. Image in the public domain. I guess that's obvious because when you are out trekking you are in the countryside. Nature. It is the perfect place for a Maine Coon cat to be. We all know that Maine Coons hail from barn cats. They were in general outdoor cats for hundreds of years. They have a coat which is made to be outside in cold weather. I know Maine Coons are expensive and precious but they should have the opportunity to enjoy the outdoor safely if...

Omar using his enormous length (and therefore height) to go effect to scrump some tasty food from the kitchen counter. Omar is one of the world's largest domestic cats and he lives in Australia. Pic in the public domain. Yes, just like any other domestic cat, Maine Coons sometimes jump on to counters but it depends upon the individual cat. And it depends on their owner letting them and on the cat's health (see below). But there is a difference between the Maine Coon and other domestic cats: their size. I have seen numerous pictures of Maine Coon cats reaching up to kitchen counters to grab some food on the surface. Sometimes they don't need to jump onto kitchen counters to get what they want. The picture below highlights this in an amusing way. The caption is: ' I finally found out who’s been stealing all the steak🙀.' Maine Coons can sometimes reach up to the counter rather than jumping onto it to get what they want. Photo: u/MilosH18 on Reddit.com Athletic by some...

 Yes, Maine Coon cats can be black under all breed standards in those of the CFA and TICA. Here is a good example: Black Maine Coon photograph by Helmi Flick. This cat is not jet black as we see in the Bombay. Although the lightness in the coat on the chest is due to the light from behind the cat shining through the hair strands. The fact is that this 3rd most popular cat breed in the USA is recognised in all colours and divisions of the traditional category. This translates to an enormous range of coat colours and patterns. I have a page which lists them!  Please click this link to see it . But if you want to see the CFA breed standard for the Maine Coon which lists the entire range of coat colours and patterns please click on this link . Most early Maine Coons from the early 1900s were brown tabbies. Many people still prefer tabby Maine Coons as they look the most natural as this cat was a farm cat originally before they became pedigree cats. Over time other patterns and col...

In 2022 the Maine Coon (MC) is in the top 3 most popular cat breeds and rightly so. They have a great appearance and big is best for a lot of people who are in the market to adopt a cat companion.  It is hard to believe that in the mid-20th century (1950) the breed was declared extinct! That was probably a guess and an exaggeration but clearly there were very few Maine Coon cats in the USA at the time. Maine Coon. Showing the ruff around the neck, the lynx-tipped ears and the general size. This is a tabby Maine Coon which are very popular. The ruff is amazing on this cat. The photograph is in my opinion in the public domain. Before that moment, the last Maine Coon to win at a cat show was in 1911, 40 years earlier. This sharp decline is all the more mystifying because at the first North American cat show held at Madison Square Garden in New York City on May 8, 1895, a female tabby MC, Cosey, won the best in show.  Cosey was owned by Mrs Fred Brown who was presented with a silv...

Maine Coon kitten whose name is 'Ben' born in Lithuania. Photo: the breeder but I have forgotten her name. A study carried out in Poland provides anyone who is interested with some useful information about Maine Coon obstetrics. The scientists collected information from 52 litters from different households using a questionnaire. Here's the information: The overall length of pregnancy i.e. gestation was 65.5 days plus or minus 1.32 days; The shorter the pregnancy the larger the litter size; Kittens born alive had an overall mean weight of 119.6 g; Kittens born alive were heavier when pregnancy was longer; The weight of kittens decreased with larger litter sizes; 12.5% of kittens were stillborn; "The expulsion intervals varied widely". I take this to mean that the time between delivery of each kitten varied widely; In 82.9% of the cats the duration of the first stage of labour was less than two hours; The time between the birth of the first kitten and the last kitte...

84% of all homes in the United States have some kind of air conditioning. Almost all Texans have air conditioning with 80% using a central air conditioning unit. They need to as Texas can get damned hot. The hottest states are, in descending order: Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Texas and Georgia. Maine Coon keeps cool by resting in a cool hand basin. Image in the public domain. The Maine Coon (MC) is known for its shaggy, medium-longhaired coat. This is beneficial to the MC if it goes outside in cold climates. The coat is made for a temperate climate with cold winters and living in barns. They are essentially outdoor-living cats. People like longhaired cats. That's the reason why there are lots of them, not because they need warm coats. But in Texas the long coat would be a disadvantage because it left unattended it would become matted in hot weather which can lead to infection or infestation of the skin. The point is that the MC is ill-suited to the hot climates of these states and ...

I could ask whether Maine Coon cats drink a lot of water with their paws because I've seen this a lot especially with Maine Coon cats. And it seems for some reason that Maine Coons are fascinated with water. The experts say that they love to keep hydrated! Do Maine Coon cats have a particular awareness about their hydration? And they prefer to drink running or moving water rather than water in a bowl. Is it fair to say that Maine Coon cats are obsessed with water? If this breed is more interested in water than the average cat it begs the question as to why? And why do they use their paws more than is normal? Well, some of this reputation is an exaggeration which has been pushed around the internet by websites. Do Maine Coon cats drink a lot of water? I am not sure. It is said they do but I think this is an exaggerated reputation? However if the love of water is a personality trait of this cat breed, it must be because of hundred years of selective breeding. Normally cat breeders se...

I'm sorry but this is not about Maine Coon cats because I have temporarily run out of things to say about that beautiful cat breed 😎. This is about something which is very human and it is the failure to recognise your own cat. A woman in Canada thought that she had lost her cat, George, and believed that she had spotted him on the road as she drove up to her house.  She grabbed the cat and placed him inside her car. When she got home her cat was there and realised that she had "stolen" someone else's cat. People on TikTok told her to put him back where she had bound him. Which she obligingly did. Although both the cat that she 'stole' and her cat are tabby cats. She believes that the other cat is a community cat but judging by the appearance it looks as though he or she isn't and is someone's pet.  In typical TikTok fashion a lot of people liked the video but I don't think it is worth that much in terms of adulation. Perhaps it was the woman's...

For me this is a beautiful ginger tabby Maine Coon being intelligent. Ginger tabbies are always intelligent! The cat's owner disparages her cat, Teddy, by implying that he can't jump over 18 inches when he is a member of the biggest cat breed. But this is incorrect, I think. Cats find the easiest route over or through barriers.  As the barrier is not solid Teddy goes through it. If it was solid I would confidently expect him to jump over it. It is cat intelligence at the end of the day linked to survival. In the wild, cats have to conserve energy to maximise their chances of survival in a harsh world. Domestic cats as we know inherent all the attributes of their wild cat forebears. They are all there plain to see and they come out all the time especially when cats are alone outside in a forest.   Yes, the soundtrack is crap! Really irritating but the MC is great and the cat's behaviour is interesting and completely different to the description in the video. Update: Video ...