@eachandeveryone It can be very expensive yes. I will keep my girls once they are too old, they have always been pets first and if they are ever not suitable to breed, or just too old now, they will stay with me still. I couldn’t bear to part with any of them.
Some breeders do rehome them once they can no longer breed as they need to make room for the new breeding cats but I’d rather stop breeding then do that. We have 3 girls now, 2 that are breeding and 1 that ‘might’ have a litter in the future depending on how she develops but our primary aim right now is to breed a lilac for show, once we’ve done that Bella (the only one capable of producing a lilac) in my opinion is done and can be neutered.
@allergictoironing That’s interesting. Almost every breed of cat has something that needs testing for so it’s interesting that dogs are the same. I imagine raising puppies is much harder! At least with cats the mum cat weans and litter trains the kittens without much input from me.
@watcherofthenight I’m also desperately hoping for a lilac. Lilac’s are quite difficult to get in Ragdoll’s as you need the kitten to inherit the chocolate gene and the dilute gene. The colour was almost lost in Ragdoll’s before we knew how it was inherited as seal and blue are dominant. Many breeders are now working to bring it back by breeding chocolate carriers to each other.
The colours can usually be seen around 3-4 weeks old. As they are colourpoint they are born white and the colour comes later, the colour develops in response to cold. As they are warm in the uterus they are white and as they get colder (once no longer snuggled up with mum 24/7) the colour develops on their legs, tail, ears and face as these areas are colder than the body. You can’t tell by their eyes as all Ragdoll’s have bright blue eyes no matter what their colour.
This photo is Bella’s last litter when they were 4 weeks old, you can see how the colour is starting to be visible on their noses and tail. The darker one is a seal and the lighter ones blue. Lilac is even lighter than that. It’s always exciting when you start to see what you’ve got.