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In search of the big Maine Coon with the tiny voice

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They (the experts) say that the Maine Coon is a big cat with a tiny voice. They're the biggest domestic cat . So is it true that they have tiny voices? 'Sean Coonery' has a pretty standard voice but if anything quieter and less demanding than normal. He is undemonstrative in character and voice. Screenshot. I visited YouTube and viewed as many Maine Coon talking videos that I could find. I have 2 observations about the Maine Coon (MC) voice. Firstly, they are not hugely talkative. No more so than any other domestic cat and perhaps quieter than normal; Secondly, and importantly, their voice is low key and sweet. It is not loud and demanding like the sounds made by the Siamese. It is a shy voice. I would not call it a tiny voice but a sweet, respectful and undemanding voice. A very pleasant sound. I agree that there is this slightly strange juxtaposition of the smallish voice coming from a huge domestic cat.  Note : This is a video from another website. Sometimes they are ...
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Clowder of Coons

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Here is a clowder of Coons. The phrase has a certain ring to it which is why I chose the title. There is no doubt in my mind, although I've not been told, that these are siblings. It looks certain. They all have the classic Maine Coon face, which includes a strong muzzle and those large, lynx-tipped ears. They are ginger tabbies. Ginger tabby cats are nearly always males because the O gene which gives them their coat is sex-linked. RELATED:  Orange, red, yellow, ginger or marmalade cats Clowder of Coons. Photo: Pinterest. These are siblings I am sure. The origin of the word "clowder" should be mentioned in this short note. I'm told that it comes from the early 19th century. The origin is in the word "clutter" and it is probably related to the word "clot". It seems that clutter came out of  'cludder'. The Free Dictionary states: Clowder, Cludder, Clutter - kendle or kindle of cats, 1801; a group of cats. Sometimes words evolve because they ...
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Big Floppa Tortie Maine Coon

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The ear tufts are very similar to those of the caracal ; very long and floppy. Ear tufts (lynx-tipped ears) are a vital part of the Maine Coon image. It is one of the breed's distinguishing features. Breeders work on them to make sure they are pronounced. These ear tufts bend under their own weight. It is neat and the ultimate sign of great lynx-tipped ears 😎. This is a tortoiseshell Maine Coon and therefore with 99% certainty we can say that the gender is female. All tortoiseshells are feminine. Male torties act like masculized females . RELATED: Tortoiseshell cats . Big Floppa Tortie Maine Coon. Photo: Pinterest and therefore deemed in the public domain. RELATED: Black tortoiseshell The coat is nicely shaggy. There is not much of a ruff. The muzzle is nice and square and strong. That works well. The eyes match the coat; nice touch. Even the ear flap on the left matches the coat as the light from behind the cat passes through the thin construction to highlight the blood vessels n...
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How a top Maine Coon breeder ships $950 kittens within the USA and worldwide

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For me, it is interesting to understand the process of shipping Maine Coon kittens worth about $1000 worldwide. It's quite common for breeders in the USA to ship worldwide but I guess most often they ship within the USA. But even then the flight is going to be 4-6 hours sometimes. Petra a Maine Coon kitten available for purchase from Calypso Coons. Photo: Calypso Coons. Calypso Coons My search brought up Calypso Coons. That is because they have an advert on Google which ranks top because they pay for that right. This tells me that they are investing in their business. They have some very beautiful Maine Coon kittens available at the time I am writing this. They are priced at US$950 each. They look very much in line with the breed standard. In other words they are recognisably Maine Coon cats because of their strong muzzles and large ears and general body conformation, shaggy fur and ruffs.  They have many satisfied customers 👌 I don't get paid for this 😇 . I am tempted, mysel...
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Male ginger tabby Maine Coon kitten dazzles

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This is another cracker of a Maine Coon kitten from Russia. There is the hint of a human face which adds a bit of glamour and glitter to this cat. Ginger tabbies always look good and if you believe it, they always have nice characters too (subject to being raised properly underfoot). The breeder is Viktoria Vyacheslavovna Terskaya who I believe is Russian or who lives in one of the former Russian satellite states. This is a typical European Maine Coon well bred in terms of appearance . I have no knowledge whatsoever of the cat's health. That's an important topic which is often overlooked. But Maine Coons have serious inherited health conditions to which adopters need to pay attention when buying. ASSOCIATED PAGE: 15 facts about hip dysplasia in Maine Coon cats Male ginger tabby Maine Coon kitten dazzles. Photo: Viktoria Vyacheslavovna Terskaya. I can see that the photographer has used ring flash for the photo. You see the reflection in the eyes. This lighting is soft and shadow...
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Maine Coon with warrior war paint

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It is a slightly flamboyant title but when I saw this cat I immediately thought of the warrior war paint of the native American. It is as if someone painted this prominent white line down the middle of this handsome Maine Coon's face. And their lynx-tipped ears are tipped in dusky white. The ruff is in white too so it looks like a genuine human ruff from the mid-16th century to the mid-17th century. All-in-all a cracking cat. This looks like a black smoke coat with the white spotting gene creating the 'blaze' down the face. I think this is a polygenetic coat. But I don't know a lot about cat genetics. ASSOCIATED PAGE:  Difference between European and American Maine Coons Maine Coon with warrior war paint. Picture in the public domain.
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Hip dysplasia in Maine Coons is more severe when it affects both hips

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 Maine Coon hip dysplasia is more severe when it affects both hips. I have no knowledge about the health of this stupendous cat. The picture is here to illustrate the page only. Photo: in public domain. This has to be short because I am reading off the summary to a study called Demographics of Hip Dysplasia in the Maine Coon cat . The Researchers had access to the complete hip dysplasia registry collected by the Orthopaedic Foundation for Animals through April 2015. The registry contained information on 2,732 cats of which 99.1% were Maine coon cats i.e. 2,708. They found that hip dysplasia is more severe in bilateral than in unilateral cases. This means when both hips are affected the severity of the disease is worse. They also found that the disease becomes more severe with increasing age. Finally, the overall incidence as per this registry was 24.9% of Maine Coon cats. To put that another way, 24.9% of Maine Coons had hip dysplasia in this registry. The number was slightly hi...
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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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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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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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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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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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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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Black smoke Maine Coon Richie with a black face and diamond eyes

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Black smoke Maine Coon Richie with a black face and diamond eyes. Photo: Instagram. OMG, this is a Maine Coon with an amazing face. His full name is "Richie du Mont d’Even". I think he has a black smoke coat which has created this black face with the assistance of other genes (polygenetic influence?) and ears with piercing, diamond eyes. This is a very special cat. Richie looked very interesting but relatively plain as a kitten. Image: Instagram. His paws are balls of fluff. He has a mane that goes over his head like a halo. He's angelic and other-worldly. The lynx tips on the end of his ears are smoky grey which makes them stand out. They are a bit like the opposite to the black lynx tips of the wild caracal.  He lives in France with his human: Adriana Piraino. He was born on 7th November 2020. He is still very young. They say Maine Coons reach adulthood at around the age of 4. He is going to be enormous as well. Richie with Adriana. Photo: Instagram Richie was bred b...
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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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