Picking the Show Cat in the Litter

I am often asked how to pick the potential Grand Champion in a litter. This page is an attempt to share with you some of my experiences, in the hope that it will help you to focus quickly on those cats that you want to bring forward in your breeding program. These are the characteristics I look for once the kittens reach the age of six weeks:

Eyes

The eyes should be showing some color by now. The golden eye may have a mottled appearance which will clear with maturity to a strong gold color. The copper eye will already be copper-colored and will stay that way as the cat matures.

Ears

The kitten should have a high ear set; this is especially important in the male because he will usually have some separation of the ears as the breeding jowls develop at maturity.

Nose

I look for the nose to be straight with a gentle slope between the eyes.

Head

The young Grand Champion will show some fullness of the cheeks below the ears, indicating that the head will have the correct inverted triangle (trapezoid) shape at adulthood. Look down from above with the kitten facing away from you: from that angle the whisker pads should not be puffy-looking.

Body

The kitten's body should be solid feeling. I look for a chest that feels rounded to the palm of my hand, and the cat's rear should feel likewise rounded. The stifle should be rounded, not straight. Some things to look out for would be any tendency to be knock-kneed, a boney-feeling spine, a pigeon chest, or extreme closeness between the shoulder blades: any signs of these conditions probably means this is not the Grand Champion from the litter.

Tail

The tail should be thicker closest to the spine, tapering off to a rounded tip. Avoid skimpy, thin tails, a kink in the tail, or a bulbous tip on the end of the tail.

Coat

The best coats will be clear and evenly colored, without striping or circles on the sides. Some coats may appear to have broken stripes on the sides, but look closer: a good examination may reveal a heavily-coated kitten with the coat already showing signs of breaking. The coat should be thick and springy to the touch.

Running your fingers through the coat, you should see that the coat consists of soft, fluffy down hairs next to the skin with longer guard hairs supported by rather crinkly, almost kinky, secondary hairs. By gently removing some of the hairs with the thumb and first finger these elements of the good, almost waterproof, coat can be seen. You want to see a proper mixture of the hair types: if the cat has a lot of the longer guard hairs but lacks the other types the coat may be plentiful but it will lay flat against the body, and will not demonstrate the desirable (and characteristic) breaking.

I'll end this section with two pictures of kittens who were show quality. Both of these photographs were made at six weeks of age.

This kitten has a lighter colored coat. You'll notice the appearance of broken stripes, but this coat proved to be lovely and extremely heavy once he matured. If you notice the eye, it has a slightly mottled appearance, but it resulted in a clear, bright golden eye color.

The second example I'll show you is a kitten with a darker coat, and a deep copper eye right from the start as I discussed above. Both of these kittens had some separation of the ears with the maturing of the breeding jowls. Happily, both of these kittens achieved Grand Champion rank around 9-10 months of age, and both have gone on to sire more Grand Champions themselves.

All contents copyright © 1999-2003 / Last updated on 23 October 2009