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Showing posts with the label Maine Coon mix

Is a Maine Coon, Savannah mix possible?

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There are a couple of ways of looking at this. In terms of genetics and biology there is no barrier in getting a Maine Coon to mate with a Savannah cat as they are both domestic cats - the same species of animal. Just remember though that male F1-F4 Savannah cats are sterile. Also note that the Savannah cat is a wild cat hybrid hence the term F1-F5 which means first to fifth filial (generation from the wild cat). In terms of the cat association breed standards neither TICA which recognises the Savannah cat nor the CFA which recognises the Maine Coon (as does TICA) allow these breeds to mate with a different breed. 'Outcrossing' is not permitted. This is to ensure that the distinctive appearance of these breeds is maintained and not diluted. If they were mated the resultant offspring would have greater genetic diversity and benefit from hybrid vigour. The Maine Coon x Savannah cat hybrid would be healthier but a moggie as they would be unregisterable. Cats associations would not...
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Lykoi Maine Coon mix

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What can I say? Not a lot unlike some other websites because there is no such cat breed as a Lykoi Maine Coon mix. If it did exist it would be either a purebred hybrid if registered or a moggy if the cat had not been registered with a cat association. But a discussion is rather pointless because this is hypothetical. This is speculative. There is no such cat as a Lykoi Maine Coon mix. Update: please read the comments below. In short, there is a breeder of Maine Coon cats and Lykoi cats on social media (TikTok) who claims to have created this hybrid but the video accompanying this claim does not show what I would have thought would be Lykoi hybrids. So, at the moment, I do not believe that this hybrid exists as yet. The man calls the hybrids 'Lycoons'. Maine Coon breed standard And there won't be such a cat because under the breed standard for the Maine Coon, no outcrosses are allowed to either non-purebred cats or purebred cats. This is to preserve the blood lines and to p...
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Fictional 'Maine Coon mix' cats at Petfinder to encourage adoptions

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This article should be a warning (if it is needed) to first-time adopters who are looking for a Maine Coon cat at a discount price. You won't find one unless you are very lucky with one at a Maine Coon cat club for instance. Petfinder If you search for a Maine Coon to adopt on Petfinder.com they present 604 cats ready and waiting for adoption (at late March 2023)! Clearly, they cannot all be purebred Maine Coons. I didn't have the time to check all of the candidates but the first half dozen were all Maine Coon mix cats according to Petfinder.com. Maine Coon mix cats on Petfinder. Screenshot. But they simply are not. These are all random bred cats. They are moggies. And they are beautiful and very adoptable moggies but they there is no Maine Coon DNA in them.  I'd expect all 604 cats to me moggies and mislabelled as Maine Coon mixes. Warning to adopters People wanting to adopt a Maine Coon but can't really afford the purchase price should be aware that the Petfinder Main...
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How to tell if your cat is a Maine Coon mix

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The little Infographic below tells you the essential information that you need to know in deciding whether the longhaired cat that you have acquired is a Maine Coon mix or not. The basic default situation is this:  If you've 'acquired' a longhaired cat such as a tabby and you don't know whether he or she is a Maine Coon mix or even a fully-fledged purebred Maine Coon, then your cat is NOT a Maine Coon and it is not a Maine Coon mix. That's the starting point. You have to beat that DEFAULT situation. Infographic my MikeB at PoC. And the only way to beat it is to have a DNA test done (I don't think they are available) which is rather pointless and it will obviously cost a little bit of money. Or your cat might show some genuine appearance characteristics strongly indicating that they are a Maine Coon mix or even a purebred Maine Coon. Personal viewpoint In my personal view there is not much point knowing if you cat is a Maine Coon mix because all you are proving i...
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Maine Coon mix kitten versus genuine Maine Coon kitten

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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 lik...
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Could my cat be part Maine Coon?

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Yes, your cat might be part Maine Coon but why do you want to know? What's the point? A "part Maine Coon" is a moggy. This is a mixed-breed cat. This is a random-bred cat. You might as well go to a rescue centre and adopt a cat that needs a home than go in search for a part Maine Coon cat. Perhaps you did adopt your cat from a rescue centre. Perhaps they told you that the cat is part Maine Coon. So, what is a part Maine Coon cat? It is not a purebred cat. On the face of it, it should be a cat whose parents are a purebred Maine Coon and a moggy. Or a Maine Coon and a moggy might be the grandparents of a part Maine Coon cat. Sometimes they are referred to as " Maine Coon mix " cats. You might see quite a few of them on cats for sale sites. The person who placed the ad decided that the cat that they want to rehome looks a bit like a Maine Coon. Rather than describe the cat as a random-bred cat or a moggy, they add a bit of spice to the advert and describe the cat a...
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5 reasons why you think your Maine Coon is small

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The first reason why you believe that your Maine Coon is small is because you may have a misapprehension as to how big they are. There are quite a lot of individual Maine Coons which are not that big but we are less likely to see them on the internet. The breed standard does not state that they have to be big. A lot of the Maine Coons that we see on the Internet are indeed very big. They are outstanding but rare. The average Maine Coon is bigger than the average domestic cat but they may not be as big as you think they are. Can Maine Coons be small? Clearly a classy Maine Coon which matches the breed standard. Photo in public domain. Another reason is because your cat is a female. Sometimes female Maine Coons can be about the same size as regular domestic cats. A third reason would be that your cat is not a purebred Maine Coon. There are a lot of 'Maine Coon mix' cats on the market. A lot of the cats that you see on adoption sites are described as 'Maine Coon mix' bu...
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Maine Coon mix kittens for sale on Gumtree are a rip-off

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There is a lot that is wrong with the so-called Maine Coon cats and kittens which are advertised for sale on the website Gumtree. Firstly, many if not all are not purebred cats. They are labelled 'Maine Coon mix' or even Maine Coon but they are not.  In one example the advertiser tells us that her cat Bella gave birth to 7 kittens and that Bella is a Maine Coon but 'she does have a little bit of Norwegian Forest from her great-grandparents'. In other words this person is advertising Maine Coon kittens but when you read through the advert you know that they are not purebred but Maine Coon mix cats; essentially moggies. Yes, all her kittens are moggies because they are effectively random-bred, in a strict sense.  Maine Coon mix cats for sale on Gumtree are a rip-off. Photo: Gumtree. The word purebred contains the word "pure". If the genetic line, the bloodline is not pure, as is the case with Bella, the cat can't be purebred and if the mother is not pureb...
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Are cat rescue organisations hyping up their cats by calling them Maine Coon mix?

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If you go to Twitter looking for a Maine Coon cat to adopt you are presented with a series of tweets from rescue organisations advertising what they describe as "Maine Coon mix" cats. On this page is an example of one of those tweets. There is not an ounce, in terms of appearance, of Maine Coon cat in this beautiful rescue cat. You can't tell whether the cat has any Maine Coon genes or chromosomes inside of her. And I would doubt very much that the rescue organisation has any record or knowledge of the fact that this cat is genuinely a Maine Coon mix. To be absolutely clear, the description means that the cat is half Maine Coon and half random bread domestic cat. In other words this cat should be one removed from a purebred cat but how do we know if this is true? Maine Coon mix Lowell but is he a genuine Maine Coon mix? Picture in the public domain. Being a cynical old man, I don't think that it is true. I think rescue organisations are hyping up their cats to make...
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Location: Oakland, CA, USA
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The extreme Maine Coon face

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This is an example of extreme breeding. This is a Maine Coon but this cat is an extreme and rare example of this breed. This is not the way they look normally. This face is almost like an aggressive robot with the piercing eyes and the huge muzzle.  Or like a lion's head. The head looks enormous and very heavy. It looks unreal. But it also looks very impressive.  And purchasers like impressive-looking domestic cats. But this not the face of a Maine Coon that wins cat show competitions as it does not fit the breed standard as accurately as the more moderate winners (see below).  In fact, the CFA standard is clear in that the cat should have a balanced appearance although this cat was not bred under the CFA breed standard as I understand it (see below).  Click here for more on the kind of MC which wins at shows . Maine Coon selectively breed to have an extreme face. Image in the public domain. And the Maine Coon is meant to be a large cat, the largest domestic cat b...
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Maine Coon Size - this is a huge one!

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  Enormous Maine Coon with a head bigger than the person holding him. Pic: in public domain. Maine Coon size is very important to both breeders of this cat and the public. I sometimes think that the public is more obsessed with Maine Coon size than the breeders are. The bigger the Maine Coon the better. There is a fascination about it and I confess that there is nothing much more impressive than a huge Maine Coon. They've been bred like this through selective breeding but please remember that they weren't always like this. The original Maine Coons were regular farm cats in the state of Maine in 19th-century and before. They were robust, rugged, medium-longhaired moggy cats but impressive nonetheless. Their impressiveness led to breeders deciding to breed them which in turn led to the breed being accepted by the cat associations and then to win cat shows and become perhaps one of the most famous breeds in the world. The breed standard for the Maine Coon as provided by e.g. Cat F...
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Comparison of a black smoke Maine Coon at 6 weeks and 6-years-of-age

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This is a cross-post as the image is so damned good. It is amazing because the cat is amazing. To put the same cat at different stages of their life in the same photograph is a nice idea especially with this Maine Coon (MC) who has an amazingly heavy face. It is so mightily masculine to be almost unbelievable. He has a priceless expression on his face too. Very serious compared to the innocence of his face when he was 6 weeks old. He looks a bit coy when 6 weeks old and a slightly grumpy middle-aged man when 6 years old. Comparison of a black smoke Maine Coon at 6-weeks and 6-years-of-age. Image in pubic domain. No doubt he is huge too. You get a clear sense of that in the image. There is a serious and less impressive side to this image. It's the backstory that people don't really want to read about and discuss or in fact do anything about: heart ( HCM ) and joint disease. The bigger and heavier the MCs are the more predisposed to heart disease they are. Here is the posts on...
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Average lifespan of Maine Coon cat

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How long do Maine Coon cats live for? What's the average lifespan? Do they live shorter lives than the average random-bred family cat? These are difficult questions to answer accurately. In fact, I don't think we can answer them accurately because nobody has been counting. Nobody has a database or carried out a full-blown survey and therefore you will read anecdotal evidence i.e. statements by breeders or people who think they know the answer and these answers get repeated on the Internet. I am not sure that they are accurate. Picture of a Maine Coon who looks like a middle-aged man. Photo: Pinterest. My research indicates that people believe that Maine Coon cats live between about 10 and 15 years old. Some may live longer than that and some may live shorter lives. One well-known Maine Coon, Rubble, lived for 31 years and was at one time the oldest domestic cat in the world. But there will always be exceptions and this article is about the mean or the average although these ...
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Eerie picture of a Maine Coon sitting like a human on a chest of drawers

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This is a slightly scary picture according to those who've seen it. One social media user said it was the devil and "If I walked into a room and saw that, I would assume some shit is about to go down". There is a ghostly stillness and sinister feeling about the image. 'Eerie' is a better description. This attractive cat appears to be completely at ease and comfortable sitting on top of a chest of bedroom drawers. The lighting from below (deliberate?) enhances the eerie effect. It seems possible that this is a photo-edited image but if so, it has been done with great skill. However, I don't think this is Photoshopped. Rethink: to be honest, the more I look at the picture, the more I feel that this is a photo-edited image. It is just too unnatural to be real. Although some domestic cats get themselves into some very strange positions. Maine Coon calmly sitting just like a human on a chest of drawers. Picture source unclear. Image deemed to be in the public d...
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Tortoiseshell Maine Coon with split-face

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Maine Coon with "split face". Photo: Screenshot. This is a very impressive Maine Coon. As you can see she is a tortoiseshell and as you probably know almost all tortoiseshell and calico cats are female. There are a few male tortoiseshell cats (and this might be one of them). Their sex is caused by a genetic aberration because the genetics of tortoiseshell cats dictates that they are almost always female. About one in 3000 are male as I recall. Also, it is not that unusual to see this extreme pattern on the face which creates the appearance of a "split-face". This is not what is called a "chimera" but a normal variation of the tortoiseshell pattern. Sometimes you do see what some people call "two-faced" cats with this sort of face due to a sharply defined pattern down the middle of the face. But the genetics behind that is different to this normal tortoiseshell variation. This is a particularly extraordinary looking Maine Coon cat. Not all Maine C...
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Are Maine Coons illegal in some countries, states or territories?

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One Maine Coon website asks if Maine Coons are legal? My initial response was that it is a bizarre question (second thoughts below), but I'll answer it in my way. I say that it is a bizarre question because the Maine Coon is an entirely domestic cat by which I mean NOT a wild cat hybrid and therefore there is no reason whatsoever to declare it illegal in any jurisdiction unless that there is some other fanciful reason to ban the cat (there might be - see below). Are Maine Coons illegal in some countries, states or territories? No, to the best of my knowledge. Image: MikeB I know of no jurisdiction anywhere in the world that bans Maine Coons which makes sense. Conversely a similar sized domestic cat, the F1-F2 Savannah, is illegal in many jurisdictions (states, territories and countries) because it is a wildcat hybrid. The cat has some wild cat DNA which some legislatures consider to be detrimental to human health and welfare and to the conservation of wildlife (if the cat escapes t...
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Difference between Maine Coon and domestic long hair

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The difference between a Maine Coon cat and a domestic longhaired cat comes down to the fact that the former has been artificially bred (selective breeding) whereas the latter has usually procreated according to natural selection. Natural selection is random breeding and therefore the domestic longhair is a random-bred cat whereas, selective breeding produces a purebred, pedigree cat registered with a cat association.  Difference between Maine Coon and domestic long hair. Infographic by MikeB. And because each individual Maine Coon cat is registered with a cat association, if they are in genuine Maine Coon, their appearance should comply with the association's breed standard . The breed standard tells breeders what their Maine Coon cats should look like in order that they can win cat show competitions if they want to enter their cat into these competitions. And so, as the appearance of Maine Coon cats is moulded to the guidance of a breed standard (see a section below from the...
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No part of a Maine Coon cat should be exaggerated

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It is interesting to read that the premier cat association, the CFA (Cat Fanciers' Association) - the cat association which really dictates (with TICA) how Maine Coons should look - makes it clear that no part of the cat should be exaggerated, and the cat should be "well-proportioned and balanced".  In other words, any form of extreme appearance such as a particularly heavy muzzle or particularly large ears with extra-long lynx tips are not going to be seen as advantageous in terms of winning cat shows or in terms of having an ideal appearance. As soon as I read that no part of a Maine Coon should be exaggerated, I immediately thought of the extremely large, extreme-bred Maine Coon cats that often come from Russia. These cats have very heavy muzzles.  Lion-faced Maine Coon with exaggerated features. Image in public domain now. In fact, their heads look like the heads of lions. I get the impression that breeders have selectively bred their cats over years to look like male...
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2 top Russian Maine Coon cat breeders which ship internationally

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I am writing this from the West; specifically, near London, UK. There will be quite a few people living in the West who'd like to adopt a Maine Coon cat and they would like to adopt one from a Russian breeder because they do have a certain style.  I sense, although I don't have hard evidence to support this feeling, that the top Russian breeders of Maine Coon cats might be superior to breeders from other countries.  I am putting aside Putin's invasion of Ukraine when writing this article. Some people might object to dealing in anyway with a Russian business on account of that barbaric and illegal invasion. We should remember that Russia has quite a strong cat fancy. They like their cats and they love their purebred cats particularly the Maine Coon. It is in fact a cat breed which is quite naturally suited to the Russian way of life and climate. There's lots of space in Russia with a relatively low population and therefore there are going to be houses with large grounds ...
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