I recently talked to a breeder who is offering 2 MC kittens at a "reduced rate due to lesser quality". When I asked her what she meant by lesser quality, she said their coats are very skimpy. She went on to say that she has had a few that started out with skimpy coats, and produced show quality coats as they matured, and vice versa. Does this sound right? The "lesser quality" comment makes me nervous, but if that's only referring to their coats, I;m not concerned. I won't be showing them.

-- Anonymous, February 04, 2000

Answers

I suspect that the "lesser quality" term does refer strictly to their coats, but I'd ask the breeder outright what she means. My latest MC did not have as fluffy a coat as his siblings, and I was a little concerned. Now, however, at 15 months, his coat is beautiful and his tail is very bushy. MC's mature very slowly, so sometimes it's hard to tell what they'll "turn out" like.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

I would also ask the breeder more questions about what she means by "lesser quality". Perhaps she just mentioned the coat because that is something more obvious for a pet breeder to understand, rather than to talk about how the MCs chin may be a little weak or its ear set may not be ideal or its profile not perfect (or any number of other things which breeders can identify as being important when they are considering if kittens are going to be either good breeding stock or do well in the show ring). I am a little concerned, however, about why a breeder would mention a coat as being "skimpy". The coat may not have a wonderful pattern (again, something which might put a breeder off showing the cat), but I have yet to see relationship between an MC kitten with a shortish (skimpy??) coat and what it eventually ends up having! In fact, one of the skimpiest coated MC kittens I have ever seen shown ended up doing extremely well in the ring and it didn't seem to bother any judges that the kittens coat was quite short. MCs coats grow over several months. I would go back and ask more questions and then I would be VERY careful about proceeding with a purchase from this person unless the answers made more sense. Come back to this Q & A area with an update, please!

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2000