How many breeders

[mcguy]

South West of what country??

We don't have any local breeders (none closer than about 2 hours drive), so looked on Internet as a starting point, then have emailed, and called. There are many MC breeders in the USA, and most will ship their cats, though we have preferred to find a breeder within driving distance. You can get a good sense of how serious and knowledgeable breeders are from their websites and talking to them. If they for example list the cats as having been tested for HCM, etc. that is a good sign as compared with no mention of health testing or even the potential of health issues. You may also begin to notice that certain breeder's cats are being used by other breeders, which is also obviously a good sign. Certainly the look of a breeder's lines played a role with us. There are some MC looks that we prefer, and we have looked at sites where we just didn't find the cats terribly attractive. Cost is another factor. The well known breeders tend to charge the most, casual breeders much less. In the USA, serious MC breeders are probably charging in the $700-$900 range, but you can find people charging $1200, $1500, and even more! Of course availability can ultimately be the deciding factor. If you like a breeder but they say it is going to be 6mos or a year, etc. before you might be able to get a cat, well that may not be acceptable. Males MCs tend to be in more demand, and particular colors can be easier or harder to find at certain points.

In the end, our choices also partly came down to timing and even luck. A couple of our cats were "replacements" for cats that had died, so we did not want to wait months and months. For one girl, we happened onto a breeder relatively close, who turned out to be a really great person, and she happened to have one girl that she had just decided to sell after all (4mos old). One of our males was being purchased after my beloved red MC mix had died of HCM, and I was determined to get another red male. We were not finding many choices nearby, and my wife was very taken with the cats of a well known breeder in Pennsylvania, so she called her even though it was unlikely we would drive that far (and she does not ship). Amazingly, she had a red male kitten placed fairly nearby with a repeat customer of hers, and the woman was not happy with the kitten (or the kitten was not happy with the situation of multiple cats). She encouraged us to go see him and it was definitely love at first sight (and he was clearly much happier in our environment than the one he was in, so everyone ended up happy).