Your Maine Coon Guide

It's a bit like asking how long is a piece of string? I'm joking but the answer depends to a certain extent upon the perceptions of the cat's owner. Some Maine Coon caregivers will hardly see tumbleweed hairballs blowing around the kitchen floor !  Or whiskers that have been shed lying on the carpet or bed. Domestic cat fur does tend to get everywhere and an experienced cat caregiver will be somewhat blind to it because they become used to having it around. Huge Maine Coon will be difficult to groom. Image in the public domain with words added by MikeB. But to answer the question, Maine Coons shed their fur like any other domestic cat which is to be expected. Only, as they are a medium-longhaired cat, the hair strands are longer and therefore there is more hair in terms of overall bulk being deposited on household surfaces. This is compounded by the fact that they are the largest domestic cat breed . Of course, the old adage is that caregivers of medium-longhaired and longh...

It sounds as if interior decoration is being discussed. 'Furnishings' normally means the furniture, fittings, and other decorative accessories such as curtains and carpets, for a house or room.  But in the great family of cat fanciers, it means ear hair 😊 and Maine Coons have lots of it. Sticking out of the top of the ear (lynx tips) or sprouting from inside the ear and fanning out like water sprinklers on a football pitch. Cat fanciers love it. I like it too but I find it strange because for humans it is the opposite. Men ask their barber to shave the inside of the ear to remove their ear hair. Well, the barber asks first and the client always says 'yes'. After all ear hair is unattractive 😎. So why is it attractive when it is on domestic cats? Maine Coon ear furnishings. Image by MikeB Well, I can think of one reason but there might be others. Cats are covered in fur, millions of hair strands. How many hair strands are there on a domestic cat? I tried to count them ...

Under the Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA), the Maine Coon coat should be heavy and shaggy, shorter on the shoulders and longer on the stomach and britches. A full-frontal ruff is desirable, and the coat texture should be silky with the coat falling smoothly. That's the breed standard. Cream Maine Coon with shaggy fur. Image: Pinterest. A study published in October 2021 (see full citation at base of article) which is quite recent, found that the gene which causes long hair in cats can be heterozygous or homozygous and this affects the "longhair phenotype in about 3% of these cats". That's a reference to Maine Coon cats. Heterozygous means "having two different alleles of a particular gene or genes" while homozygous means having two identical alleles. It's a tricky subject to discuss but research indicates that hair length in domestic cats varies a lot, and this variation is due to mutations of the recessive gene known as the: fibroblast growth factor ...

How often do Maine Coon cat owners have to deal with poop stuck to their fur? Faeces stuck to the fur on the backside of a Maine Coon cat appears to be an issue which is not talked about much, but I have bumped into it on a social media website and would therefore like to mention it here. Ideally, I'd like to hear from people living with Maine Coons and other longhaired cats too. I can see the problem! This is a Maine Coon rear end. The photo comes from the Mütyür & Pindúr website on tumblr. The reason why I am mentioning it is because it appears to be quite a common problem for Maine Coon cat caregivers. How big a problem? I think I have an answer.  On a page of the Reddit.com website there are 35 comments to the question: "How often do you guys have to deal with poop stuck to fur?" And the question is asked on the Maine Coon channel of the website. Mini survey The comments act as a kind of survey. Only two out of the 35 commenters said that they had never had this p...

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 ...

It could be argued that a disadvantage in being the human caregiver of a magnificent Maine Coon cat is that you have to take steps to prevent the coat from matting. Such a dense, shaggy coat is great for outdoor cats in cold climates but in temperate climates it is not so much that the cat can become overheated but that the fur can become matted.   Thick Maine Coon coat can easily become matted if left unattended. Not for this stupendous Maine Coon, however. But proactive steps are easier, safer and more enjoyable for the cat. Photo: Pinterest. Matting is problematic and mats should be removed. If they aren't removed, they will become bigger as we've seen on the Internet with some incredible cases of extreme matting through neglect. Mats take up more and more hair and they start to pinch the skin which can cause irritation and even pain. They can also lead to infection an infestation of the skin. It is said that you rarely see long-haired cats in feral colonies. This, it is...

Proper Maine Coons i.e. Maine Coons with a pedigree and who are purebred cannot have short hair. This is because the breed standard insists that the coat of this popular cat breed is "heavy and shaggy; shorter on the shoulders and longer on the stomach and britches. Frontal ruff desirable. Texture silky with coat falling smoothly" - Cat Fanciers' Association breed standard. Maine Coon showing the medium-longhaired coat. Photo copyright Helmi Flick This description of the desired coat precludes the possibility that the Maine Coon can have short hair. This is a medium-longhaired cat with a shaggy coat and perhaps the reason for these very clear guidelines by the cat associations is that the cat originates in the barn cats of the state of Maine in the USA. These cats were suited to the climate of that state during the winter months. Therefore, the breed standard is faithful to the original cat going back hundreds of years. The shorthaired coat is completely different to t...

The title might sound a little bit strange because Maine Coon cats are always under the attention and care of humans but a point needs to be made; a general point about cat coats. Long-haired cats are rarely seen in feral cat colonies. It is believed or speculated that the reason for this is that the long coat is a disadvantage to a free-living cat because it easily becomes matted. The only way to remove the matts is for a human to be involved. The cat herself cannot prevent this happening. Maine Coon. Photo: Image by  Joness  from  Pixabay   It isn't so much about the cat getting hot in warm conditions because their coat is long it is about the health concerns as it becomes matted. Although, of course, a long coat is beneficial to outdoor cats in cold climates. However, in temperate climate it is not for the reasons stated above and Maine Coon cats are found anywhere across the globe more or less. There are two reasons why the Maine Coon coat is medium-longhaired...