[Castle Farm]

My son keeps a couple of cats. One is Angus and he's a Maine Coon and the other is a Bengal.

Just saw a couple of Bengal kittens up for sale at about £500 each and being as it is his birthday today I though one would make a good 40th birthday present, but you have to sign a 'contract' to get the cats spayed before you get the registration papers.

Is this normal and if so why?

[Backinwellies]

You do that if you get puppy from rescue centre .... dont know about cats

[Anke]

Well I would have thought that once they are spayed you cannot register them anymore, as they are not breeding animals??? Usually only the breeder can register stock before selling on, so this seems to be an odd set-up.
 
I would probably stay away and look elsewhere...

[honeyend]

Its because they do not want you breeding. Unfortunately I think its nothing to do with over breeding just protecting their market. I once went to look at a ragdoll kitten which was quite expensive, the seller would not let me have the breed papers,  after a lot of questions I realised they had mated brother and sister. I walked away.

[shygirl]

we have looked at getting pedigree cats a few times but the breeders are really finicky. they usually are not sold as breeding stock and its quite common to have to get them neutered, often before they leave as kittens. when we wanted a cat on the breeding register, the breeders wanted us to visit her repeatedly even though she lived on the other side of scotland, she was obviously wanting a good home but it wasnt fesible for us with a farm to run. most cats are sold under agreement they are kept inside only, and dont mention to anyone that they might catch a mouse  as that is the ultimate horror for a pedigree breeder.
its mainly down to business plus neurotic breeders i think, but a breeder we spoke to recently was geniunely concerned about them being vaccinated every year and not being run over.

we got a bengal cross kitten last week and hes adorable and not pricey. hes black but still has faint stripes which is rather cute. the mother was a registered bengal "rescue" and she had papers but obviously wasnt neutered before being rehomed. she may have been just on the pet register though (i cant remember the term).
try a few breeders, its worth the wait for the right cat.

ragdolls are different as they are trademarked and breed under license.

[roddycm]

When you buy a pedigree cat, you can buy it on the active or non active register. Cats on the non active register cannot be used for breeding. If you breed from such a cat its young cannot be registered. Many breeders have a neutering clause to ensure that if you buy a cat on the non active or pet register you do not then go on to breed from it. These cats are sold at a lower price than cats on the active register. It goes without saying that cats on the active reg can be used for breeding kittens that can then be registered and sold as pedigree kittens.

This is very common in pedigree cat breeding and in fact encouraged by the different certifying bodies such as GCCF and tica etc etcccc!

I only know this as i have had siamese and oriental cats as pets and investigated as i had asked the same question!

[plumseverywhere]

Mum used to breed Maine Coon cats (dad chickens) - can't believe how high the pet price is for one now, £500?! crikey.  I don't think she used to make people sign the contract but recently I looked at Bengals and many breeders were insistent on female pets being spayed.

[Rosemary]

Given the number of cats in rescue shelters, something that reduces the number of kittens born must be a good thing.

[Alistair]

It was what we did when we got our chinchilla Persian , if we hadn't the cost would've been double.

She's dead now, bless her, she used to sit on my lap whilst I was trying to take over the world, mwahh ha ha ha haa

(Evil baddy cat in James Bond, her great great great etc grandad was in diamonds are for ever, I wasn't)

[lord flynn]

I guess its like anything you breed-you have those that there is nothing wrong with but aren't up to the breed standard. you cull either by erm, culling or by selling on to non breeding homes. Although that might be to protect the market then that in itself isn't bad-as long as those breeding are being responsible themselves.
Thinking solely on the poultry front, there's lots of breeds out there that will probably never be what they should be now, because people are breeding from stock that's not up to standard,mostly unknowingly tbf. Its the reason I decided to not carry on with Marsh Daisies and why I'm doing so much research on Scots Greys.
At least with animals that can be neutered, you can protect the breed somewhat.