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Two mistakes that a Maine Coon purchaser should avoid

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There are two potentially big mistakes that a person who wants to purchase a Maine Coon might make and about which they should have some knowledge. They both concern the health of this cat. The problem with the popular Maine Coon cat breed is that the cats can inherit serious health conditions and a purchaser needs to know whether there have been DNA and other tests carried out to identify whether the Maine Coon cat in question carries the genetic mutation which gives the cat the disease. Three major inherited diseases So, for example, the Maine Coon cat is predisposed to inheriting the genetic disease known as Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA). It's a condition which can affect Maine Coon cats but there is a test available which can isolate this mutation. For example, Langford Vets advertise on the Internet their Molecular Diagnostic Unit, where a PCR-based assay can be carried out to quickly and accurately identify the SMA mutation in Maine Coon cats. Read about SMA in Maine Coons by...
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About Robert Sijka the man who photographs his wife's stunning Maine Coons

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This is a brief article on the man who rapidly became known on the Internet for being a Maine Coon cat photographer. His images and slow-motion videos of amazing Maine Coon kittens and adult cats started to appear on the internet a couple of years ago (for me) and we were all impressed by the cats which I have learnt are bred by his wife and that is how he became a Maine Coon photographer. One of his photos of an amazing black smoke Maine Coon kitten called YOGA. Image: Robert Sijka. For me the image is too dark. The darkness of the image is for effect but I prefer more visual information. My eye searches for visual information but it is too dark to find. Although he is known for these stunning Maine Coon photos (too dark for me by the way) he is a nature and pet photographer.  He lives in Hong and Guangzhou, China but is an international photographer. By the way Guangzhou is in the south of China and is known for the region where cats and dogs are mercilessly abused before being k...
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Are Maine Coon cats good mousers?

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The question is asking whether you can expect your Maine Coon cat to keep the mouse population down inside and around your home. I reluctantly have to say that the question is little bit misguided and I'll explain why as I see it. Are Maine Coon cats good mousers? It depends on the individual cat more than anything else. Image: MikeB The Maine Coon cat, as we know, is a domestic cat. They happen to be the largest domestic cat breed but that doesn't change in any way the fact that, in general, they have the personality of a typical domestic cat. And with respect to being keen predators, all domestic cats are pretty keen about chasing rodents because it is in their DNA. They inherit this desire. It's all instinctive. But, the desire to hunt mice varies somewhat from individual cat to individual cat in the general domestic cat population and it will vary somewhat within individual Maine Coon cats. So, the answer to the question is Maine Coon cats, in general, will probably be...
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Film celebrates the life of Bobby Flay's Maine Coon 'Nacho' who recently passed over the rainbow bridge

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Boby Flay and Nacho. Image: screenshot from the video on this page which is from Twitter. Here is a nice little video which is on Twitter X of the celebrated and much loved, ginger Maine Coon, Nacho , who recently passed over the rainbow bridge. His caregiver who survives him is Bobby Flay who is as celebrated - or more so - than Nacho. Mr Flay was devastated . The celebrity chef and entrepreneur founded his premium cat food brand in 2021 and named it after his beloved Maine Coon. RELATED POST:  American celebrity chef Bobby Flay named his pet food business after Nacho, his ginger tabby Maine Coon . There are a couple of points worth making at this time: Firstly, Nacho was the tender age of 9 when he died - the average lifespan of cats of this breed is 11 years . Nine years is about half the lifespan of a standard moggie cat. I have not seen the reports on the cause of Nacho's death as yet. If you have, please leave a comment. If not, I will speculate and say that it was almost ce...
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Colourful cat show judge explains key Maine Coon appearance features for his enthralled audience

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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...
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Maine Coon 'kitten' the size of a fridge has been seen 394 million times

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His name is Chas and I have exaggerated a little about his size but he is enormous and he is only a kitten. Let's say he is about the size of a bobcat! He is extraordinary. Here is a screenshot and you can see the video by clicking on this link . There are a gazillion super huge Maine Coons on the internet these days but this fella takes the biscuit. There are some MCs which are larger but not many. Size is not everything. Quality and compliance with the breed standard is more important for the breeders but size seems to be almost everything for people who want to purchase one of these cats.
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Pretty Maine Coon girl in blue ticked and black tortie for sale in Berlin

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This female tortoiseshell Maine Coon caught my eye on the Internet and I discovered that she is for sale in Berlin. She was created by a Berlin Maine Coon breeder. The breeder is registered and has proof of expertise according to paragraph 11 of the Animal Protection Act in Germany. I suspect that this means that in Germany there are basic requirements for cat breeders and that they must be registered with the local authorities. This breeder is registered she says. She says that her cats are fully socialised and that they have two girls currently available. They were born on 7 June 2023 and "have the colour black tortie and blue silver ticked". Wanda is a black tortie - red spots on her black fur make her like flames of fire in the night. She is a bright curious kitten and loves to play. Her price is €1000. I believe the picture above shows Wanda. The other female kitten is name Wassa she ticked in blue silver. Our colour is described as looking like a "waterfall in the ...
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Location: Berlin, Germany
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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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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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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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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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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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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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What is the activity level of the Maine Coon cat?

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Laid back, golden-eyed silver tabby Maine Coon looks down on their slave. Image in the public domain. One well-known Maine Coon cat website asks whether Maine Coon cats are hyper? And they go on to state that Maine Coon kittens are a little hyper which, as it happens, is typical of all kittens of all domestic cat breeds and random bred cats. It is just the nature of young kittens in the same way that it is the nature of young humans. But the word "hyper" is very far from the behaviour of the adult Maine Coon cat. My impression is that it is the opposite pretty well. One very obvious sign that Maine Coon cats are in general calm individuals is that you see many photographs on the Internet of Maine Coons cat owners holding up their cat to show them off to the camera and the expression on the cat's face could not be any calmer. They take it all in their stride. There is no struggling or wriggling to signal that they want to be put down as quickly as possible. I have a strong...
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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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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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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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