Your Maine Coon Guide

Well, I love this male cat show judge. He's and colourful and I say that with the greatest of respect because I think he is great. He's extravagant and very confident and he knows his cats inside out. And, so, he delivers to his enthralled audience the key appearance aspects of the Maine Coon cat. He talks of the breed being a natural or native breed.  What he means is that this magnificent purebred cat was once a moggy barn cat living in the state of Maine and in other states down the east coast. The Maine Coon was selectively bred meaning moulded and created out of large, sturdy moggy cats living in barns in the state of Maine. People observed this moggie and thought that they looked great so they decided to turn them into a breed show cat and it has taken about a hundred years for this breed to become one of the world's most popular and for that I think we can mainly thank social media such as this video on TikTok and YouTube and Facebook. Cat show judge assesses a Maine...

Show MC cat. Image in public domain. Are declawed Maine Coon cats disqualified from cat show competitions? A fair question seeing as declawing is so prevalent in the United States despite the cruelty of the multiple amputations. I am faced with an imprecise answer from the two premier cat associations based in America. But Dr Morris, a British zoologist clears up the issue. CFA and TICA - Cat Fanciers' Association and The International Cat Association These are a couple of top cat associations. The top with the GCCF in the UK. Both as expected list the reasons why a cat might be disqualified from competition. In both examples they do not state that they disqualify declawed Maine Coon cats (MCs) or any other breed of cat. They should as it would send a clear message that they are against the operation. Perhaps they are afraid of alienating a large segment of American society. The CFA makes an INDIRECT reference to disqualifying declawed Maine Coons. Here it is: DISQUALIFY: Incorrect...

The answer to the question in the title is that you won't know unless you have carried out due diligence checks yourself. However, the one advantage is that they shouldn't be a scam breeder. That's pretty basic but there are scammers out there. You want to select a Maine Coon cat breeder as you have decided to adopt. How do you select a breeder? It is a big decision because it affects the quality of the cat bought. It is a decision which will impact the next 15+ years of your life. " CFA and TICA don't protect buyers of Maine Coons from breeders listed on their websites" - MikeB CFA and TICA don't protect buyers of Maine Coons from breeders listed on their websites. Image: MikeB America's two biggest and best-known cat associations are the CFA and TICA. You probably know that. They are the Cat Fanciers' Association and The International Cat Association respectively. Both have a very similar policy with respect to the Maine Coon breeder listings. CF...

This is a discussion about choosing a Maine Coon cat breeder and whether the first-time purchaser should select a cat from a TICA (The International Cat Association) registered breeder or a CFA (Cat Fanciers' Association) registered breeder. There will, I believe, be a subtle difference in the appearance of Maine Coon cats registered with these two top cat associations in America.  TICA and CFA Maine Coon comparison. Photo: Helmi Flick. This might interest first-time buyers of this breed particularly if they are researching the breed carefully and have specific requirements. Initially I look at the breed standards regarding the coat from these two cat associations and then I discuss how it might impact the purchase. TICA breed standard for Maine Coon coat "Length: uneven; shorter on shoulders, gradually lengthening down the back and sides. Long, full, shaggy belly fur and britches. Tail fur long, full, flowing. Frontal ruff becomes more develop with age. Texture: all-weather c...

It is a useful question to ask because the answer might surprise you. I've mentioned it before, but the CFA, the leading cat association, do not insist through their breed standards that the Maine Coon cat should be big but TICA differ. The 'end product' is the choice of the breeders. The weight range of this popular breed reflects the cat association's breed standards. Dr. Bruce Fogle DVM in his book THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF THE CAT states that the weight range is 4-10 kg (9-22 lbs). The lower weight applies to females which as you might expect are generally smaller than males. And it is a weight which is not untypical for a large number of non-purebred cats. One website, 11pets, states that the average female weight is 11 pounds and the average male weight is 14.8 pounds. They also state that 25% of male Maine Coon cats weigh between 6 kg and 8 kg. And 30% of females way between 4 kg and 6 kg. Another website states that the average weight of a Maine Coon cat varies betwe...

There are at least 2, possibly three and more,  core Maine Coon features. It depends on your point of view. The three I have chosen are important. The third - the feet - are important to me because the Maine Coon (MC) is famous for polydactyl feet and they are part of the history of the breed which makes it very odd that the CFA do not accept polydactyl show cats. Polydactyl cats are great. Fortunately, TICA does accept them. TICA is more open minded and less stepped in tradition than the CFA. Polydactylism is benign. It is said that the ships' cats that were brought over with early immigrants to the USA were often polydactyl because the sailors believed that they could maintain their balance with greater certainty than non-poly cats. A reason why they were chosen as ships' cats. As I said it is an important part of the MC history and should be featured. The Boston area on the east coast of the USA is famous for a preponderance of polydactylism in domestic cats. In addition to ...

Yes, the Cat Fanciers' Association Maine Coon breed standard is quite clearly contradictory in respect of the GENERAL standard and in reference to the breed's coat. I will explain what I mean. Now, that's shaggy 😎👍✔️ but it is not SMOOTH. I hope this cat is not registered with the CFA! Image in public domain. Under "GENERAL" the breed standard states "A distinctive characteristic is its smooth, shaggy coat". The word "smooth" is contradictory to the word "shaggy". We all know what the word smooth means, but I will be more precise and say that it means something which has a regular surface and is free from perceptible projections and lumps. The surface should be flat. The word shaggy needs to be defined. It means unkempt, thick and long. It normally applies to hair and in which case it means unkempt hair or fur. The word "unkempt" means having an untidy or dishevelled appearance. It is impossible to reconcile a coat with a ...

This list of The International Cat Association (TICA) and Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA) registered Maine Coon breeders is good as at 2019 and I hope still good at 2022 but it's important to know that in the world of cat breeding things change fairly quickly as nearly all cat breeders are hobby breeders. You need to make sure that you adopt/purchase a genuine Maine Coon not a Maine Coon mix. The latter are moggies. This is a vital starting point. US cat show champion on left. Extreme bred Maine Coon on the right from Russia. Their catteries are their homes. They are small scale operations. They have no employees and can stop breeding cats whenever they like. Not infrequently they are middle-aged and sometimes elderly people which makes it more likely that they'll stop and retire.  The laboured point I am making is that the list below may not be accurate in a few years, but it is the best that can be produced at this moment. Both CFA and TICA will update their lists so yo...

'White cats and all cats with white may have blue or odd eyes'. That is a direct quote from the Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA) which fully answers the question.  To put it another way: All-white and particolor Maine Coons can have blue or odd-eye colours under the CFA and TICA breed standards. Other than cats with some white, eye colour "can be shades of green, gold, green-gold or copper. Those are the allowed Maine Coon cat eye colours under this association. The same applies to TICA. All-white blue-eyed Maine Coon. Credit: see image. There is not much more to say but I will say this. White fur is fur without pigmentation. The dominant white gene makes a cat all-white and the piebald or white spotting gene makes a cat partially white (bicolor or particolor)). Both these genes can affect eye colour in that they can make the eyes blue or one eye blue leaving the other I normally yellow (odd-eye color). This is why the breed standard allows blue eyes in Maine Coon c...

As you might expect the breed standards of the CFA and TICA for the Maine Coon (MC) coat are similar. There is a difference which perhaps helps to produce a difference in the appearance of these cats depending on which association the individual cat is registered with. The CFA MC coat should be 'silky'.  Jan Horlick's "Just Blue" Maine Coon, photographed against our "Charcoal" background at TICA's Evergreen Cat Fanciers cat show, Ferndale, WA, October 2015. Photo: copyright Helmi Flick. There is no mention of this refinement in TICA breed standard. I think that you'll find that CFA Maine Coons tend to be less shaggy than TICA ones. They are a bit prettier perhaps and less rooted to their origins which is as barn cats in the state of Maine.  I wrote about this years ago and if it interests you please click here  to read a sequence of several pages on the topic. Here is a comparison of the CFA and TICA breed standards for the coat of the Maine Coon...

CFA breed standard - COAT: heavy and shaggy; shorter on the shoulders and longer on the stomach and britches. Frontal ruff desirable. Texture silky with coat falling smoothly. That shaggy coat. Photo: whippedcreamcheese / Reddit The coat is meant to be shaggy under the breed standard. I think we can agree that this individual meets the Cat Fanciers' Association breed standard. It's a little bit wild but I guess with a brush and a smoothing he or she will meet the standard perfectly. I think that you will find that the requirement for a shaggy coat is the cat associations' respecting the history of this cat as a barn cat in the state of Maine in the 1800s. This is essentially a shaggy-coated semi-feral cat working cat refined over a hundred years and more through selective breeding. But at its heart is still that barn cat with a shaggy coat to keep it warm during chilly Maine winters in a draughty barn. Note: the CFA like their Maine Coons more refined than TICA who like the...

I spy a Maine Coon , a photo by rbstijl on Flickr. The Maine Coon fur is shaggy. It is not meant to be too neat and tidy I think. The International Cat Association like the slightly untidy appearance. The fur is not of an even length. It looks more natural. This nice photograph sort of show off that shaggy haired look. You can also see the great ear hair of a Maine Coon. They are famous for their ear hair sprouting out and those glorious lynx tips, the hair growing out from the tip of the ear making them look more pointed and larger. I think this is a white Maine Coon.

Photos copyright Helmi Flick Helmi Flick says (and she should know) that Maine Coons registered with the Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA) tend to be prettier and tidier than those registered with The International Cat Association (TICA) which are more shaggy and natural looking, if you like. It's all about the interpretation of the breed standard by cat show judges, which cannot be absolutely precise. As I have already written about this I won't recite it all again here. Please go to this page for full details . The photos and text on this page are protected by copyright ©. Violations of copyright are reported to Google.com (DMCA).