Owning a stud cat can be a very rewarding experience but it brings with it great responsibility not only for the stud itself but also for the visiting queens entrusted to your care. Ideally, you should have been breeding for long enough to have acquired in-depth knowledge and experience of Burmese, their characteristics, health issues and pedigrees. Owning a stud can entail spending a significant amount of money and be very time consuming. Moreover, you should be confident that you will be able to attract enough work for the stud, ideally one queen a month.

A suitable Stud House needs to be provided, meticulously maintained and should be capable of being kept warm throughout the year. Food and veterinary bills will also be significant expense items.

You will need to spend many hours in the stud house. It is your responsibility to keep visiting queens and your stud safe and, whilst all Burmese are lovely at home, a queen in call can be a very different animal altogether. Matings need to be supervised, at least the first few with every queen. When there is no visiting queen, time needs to be spent to give your stud cat the love, company and play he needs to ensure a full and happy life.

A requirement will be to obtain a GCCF Certificate of Entirety and to show it to a queen’s owner on request. It goes without saying that a stud should have no significant hereditary defects and should only be made available for work when in top condition.

Other points to remember: -

  • Explain, in advance, any restrictions that you may place on kittens
  • Make every effort to guard against communicable diseases both in the stud and in visiting queens.
  • Take details of each queen’s diet and ensure that her normal food is available
  • Ensure that you have daytime and evening contact numbers for the queen’s owner
  • Help the queen’s owner to follow good practice by providing advice and support where necessary, explaining the importance of pedigrees and the need for the registration of kittens, in particular
  • Provide the queen’s owner with a full pedigree for your stud showing pedigree names, breed numbers and registration numbers
  • Provide a signed Mating Certificate giving the approximate due date of kittens and the expected colour distribution

At some stage it may be likely that you will have to consider neutering your beloved stud cat and possibly even rehoming him. He may not have enough queens or perhaps he is just getting too old and needs to be reintegrated into family life. If that time comes, you must be ready and strong enough to do what is in the cat’s best interests.