All our cats are much-loved pets first, and it’s very important to us that they are happy in our home.  For cats, who are highly sensitive to pheromones, a breeding household is constantly changing, even if the cats stay the same, due to the girls’ cycling hormones.  On top of that, the cats don’t stay the same, with girls going to stud and then returning; kittens emerging from the kitten room between vaccinations and then mostly heading off to new homes a few weeks later; retired breeding cats, recently-neutered, spending a few months finding out whether they want to stay here or move on to a new home; and new breeding cats coming into the house as kittens and eventually becoming either a calling queen or moving out to the stud house with the other adult boys.

As such, we don’t keep neuters unless they are happy: just being ‘okay’ isn’t enough, they need to actively enjoy being here.  Most retirees want something quieter and more consistent than we can offer them, so we’ll find them a nice retirement home.  We are lucky enough to have a few who’ve been happy to stay, though, and we’ll also have any who are in the assessment phase.

As well as the neuters we have our breeding cats: girls live in the house with us and boys live in a set of purpose-built stud runs in the garden.  Youngsters stay with the others inside until, if they’re boys, they start wanting to mark territory, showing an interest in the girls, and/or developing a ‘stud stink’, at which point they move out with the big boys.