Maine Coon mix kitten versus genuine Maine Coon kitten

In earlier articles I have gone over what a genuine, purebred, pedigree Maine Coon cat and kitten should look like. They have a distinct look if they are purebred. The picture below shows you a good example. This is a tabby Maine Coon kitten for sale in England for £1,800 at the date of this post (Nov 22, 2022). The kitten is registered with the GCCF, which is the premier cat Association in the UK.

Genuine Maine Coon kitten from England. Photo: Breeder based in Streatham, London.

Below is a photograph of what a breeder tells us (on pets4homes.co.uk) is a male tabby Maine Coon adult cat as the father and a black Ragdoll cat as the mother. I have also published a photograph of one of their kittens.

Photos: the breeder on pets4homes.co.uk who claims the parents are a Maine Coon father and Ragdoll mother.

The first point to note is that the Ragdoll is a pointed cat, and you don't get solid black Ragdoll cats. So, this mother is a random bred cat in my view. And the offspring looks like a random bred cat too. The price that the woman is asking is £550 for each kitten.

But, in my view, a purchaser is spending a large sum of money for a random bred cat which you can adopt from a rescue centre for a fraction of that price. 

Even the mother was a genuine Ragdoll cat, the resulting offspring would still be non-purebred cats and unregistrable. They would not be genuine random bred cats because they were created through selective breeding but in effect, they would be no different to random bred moggies because this mix is not recognised by the cat associations.

Therefore, the breeder cannot present to the purchaser any pedigree. Purebred cats must have a pedigree which refers to a lineage and a heritage of the family. And the family lineage (family tree) is registered the cat association (GCCF in the UK). This is not happening in this case. There will be no pedigree and there will be no purebred cat as recognised by a cat association.

And lastly, the father is meant to be a purebred Maine Coon cat. This cat may be a purebred Maine Coon cat, but the appearance is not that great for this breed. And I would doubt that this is a genuine Maine Coon in any case.

RELATED: Is my cat a Maine Coon?

The primary lesson here really is about mixing breeds. When mixing a purebred cat of any breed with a random bred cat you end up with a "mix" and another word for a mix is a "moggy" in a strict sense if you really want a genuine purebred cat and if that 'mix' is not accepted by the associations. The Maine Coon cannot be outcrossed in cat association breed standards.

What is nice about this discussion is the picture that I have found on the pets4homes.co.uk website of a Maine Coon kitten which really does show you the physical characteristics of the breed in a kitten. Look at the ears. They are tall with really nice long lynx tips jutting out of the tip of the ear flaps.

And even at this young age, the muzzle is square and strong. The coat is a grey/brown classic tabby with some white. This is one of the best coat types for the Maine Coon because it hints at that natural, barn cat origin.

RELATED: 40 facts about the Maine Coon cat.

One of the great characteristics of the Maine Coon cat is the ears and the ear tufts. And the other is the muzzle. These must show that the cat or kitten is a Maine Coon. And in adult cats you will see the ruff and the fur jutting out between the toes. And of course, finally, the size of the cat will give away their breed but don't forget that sometimes size is exaggerated on the Internet.

Genuine Maine Coon show cats are bigger than average, and they are the biggest domestic cat breed, but they are not rarely the enormous creatures that you see on the Internet.