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Breeding stunning Maine Coon Cats for health, temperament, and joy
Info & Supply List for New Families
Cats are creatures of habit. They don't always handle change well and this can cause stress which leads to behavioral problems and sometimes even symptoms of illness. So to better help you and your new cat or kitten, here are the things we have in our cattery that the cats raised in our home are use to. Providing at least some of these can help your new cat or kitten with the transition into your home.
Cat Tree
A good cat tree is great for your cat! It gives him/her something to jump on so they can sit high off the ground, which cats love. Many cat trees also have a scratching post or 2 built in. Having a good scratching post will save your furniture!
The best cat trees for Maine Coons are either from Cat Tree King or Kitty Mansions. Both places are rather pricy, but their trees are thick, sturdy and large, so they can hold up to the abuse of a Maine Coon (or more) for years!
If you would like a cat tree that is a little less expensive, you can find several good options on Amazon or Chewy. Here is a good one on Amazon. I especially like this one because it is all wood and acrylic so the entire thing is very easy to keep clean.
Food, Water and Treats
Food
We feed our cats and kittens Wellness cat and kitten food. Your kitten should be fed Wellness Kitten food, found on Chewy until he/she is 1 year old. After your kitten turns 1 year old, you can switch to an adult formula. We like Wellness Core Digestive Care found on Chewy or Amazon. You will be contractually obligated to keep your kitten on Wellness Kitten food for the first 30 days he/she is in your home. Please note the Wellness Kitten food on Amazon is not the same formula as on Chewy. The formula on Amazon includes peas and we do not recommend a food that has peas, potatoes, sweet potatoes, or soy in the ingredients. For wet food we feed Fancy Feast, found on Amazon or Chewy. Your kitten will likely love any flavor of the Fancy Feast pate. We do not feed Fancy Feast kitten formulas because the adult formulas actually contain more calories than the kitten formula. Again, You will be contractually obligated to keep your kitten on this food for the first 30 days he/she is in your home. *Low quality cat foods should never be fed to your kitten. Your kitten will need high quality wet and dry food, with lots of protein and moisture to help stay healthy and reach his/her full potential.
We recommend feeding your kitten as much canned food as you are realistically able. Feeding 50-100% canned food and 0-50% dry food is ideal. Some families are able to do this and others are not. We are not able to feed canned food more than twice a day as there are just not enough hours in the day. But we love it when our kittens go to families who can give at least 50/50 canned food and wet food. If you are able to feed your kitten 50-100% canned food, we would recommend you feed Wellness Kitten canned food until your kitten is 1 year old, and then switch to an adult formula. A little hint for wet food...if you mix some Colloidal Silver into the caned food, it last outside of the refrigerator much longer! For more information on this click here.
Our cats and kittens all eat out of a large, shallow, ceramic or stainless steel bowl for dry food, and drink from a large stainless steel water bowl. Pie plates make great food bowls! Stainless steel, glass or ceramic are your best options for water fountains and/or food bowls as plastic can cause allergic reactions in cats.
**Cats and kittens will go home with some dry and canned food. It will be enough to get them through the first 3-5 days in their new home.
Water
For water dishes for our kittens, we use a large stainless steel bowl that is about 8in tall. When it comes to older kittens and adult cats, a taller bowl only filled half way is best. As kittens get older they like to "paw" at it while drinking and can create a really big mess! Unfortunately they never grow out of this.
For many years we have used pet water fountains for our cats to drink from. However, we found them to be more of a time-consuming pain than beneficial. When our cats started drinking pure Colloidal Silver (for more information on this click here), we found that they didn't care as much if they had a fountain, and would drink just as much, if not more from a regular bowl.
A fountain can be great for some cats, because it encourages them to drink more water. Most cats do not like still standing water, so they won't drink it. Cats also do not have a thirst-drive, so if they don't want to drink water, they won't, which can cause health issues. There are many kinds of great water fountains on Amazon in a wide arrange of prices. We have personally tried several of them, looking for the perfect one. Click here to see the fountain we have used. If you would like a less expensive water fountain, click here to see another great one we recommend.
Eating Habits
Kittens should always be allowed free access to a bowl of dry food until they are one year old. Once they turn one, they COULD be put on a feeding schedule. However, unless the cat is eating too much and gaining unnecessary weight, there isn't a reason to limit their food. Most cats will not eat more than they need. But as always, follow your vet's recommendations. Our cats and kittens eat both wet and dry food daily.
Treats
Meat only baby food is something your cat or kitten can have. You want to make sure it is a puree (stage 1) and that meat and broth are the only ingredients in it...no seasonings, chunks or mixed with potatoes or veggies. Gerber and Beech Nut both make meat baby foods that are safe for cats to eat. We like the use the baby food as a treat to mix their supplements in. It is really easy to get just a little spoonful of baby food and mix in the supplement (or medicine if they need it) and give it to them to eat. Our cats love it and quickly eat it. If you want a cat treat, any of the cat treats in the pet aisle are fine for your cat or kitten to have as they won't be eating them near as much as they do their food. However, Young Again does make great cat treats! We have tried several different treats, but have landed on one of the ones by Purina that you can get in the big tub, since I go through them so quickly! All of our cats and kittens are trained to come to "here kitty kitty" (I am the only one in my house who can actually do the call, so they only ever come for me). When they come we usually put a few pieces on the floor for each cat and they all eat the treats right up.
Litter Box
In September of 2022, we switched our entire cattery from a traditional litter to pellet litter. We really like the pine pellets or paper pellets and think they work great for our cattery for the following reasons...
1. Pellets are completely natural. They aren't going to harm a cat or kitten's lungs, nasal passages or stomach/intestinal track.
2. Pellets completely eliminate all letter box odor. All smells are COMPLETELY gone! The only smell you may notice is the faint smell of wood (if using pine pellets) when you add fresh pellets.
3. Pine Pellets are ridiculously cheap! They can easily be found at any farm/feed store. Where we live, we can get them at Family Farm and Home, or Tractor Supply. A 40lb bag only costs us $7.00 and lasts us 2-3 weeks! If you only have a 1-3 cats, as most families do, a 40lb bag is going to last you much longer. Paper pellets are a bit more expensive, but still cheaper than traditional litter as as 25lb bag still lasts us 2-3 weeks. We buy our paper pellets from Family Farm and Home or Tractor Supply as well, but you can also get them from Amazon.
4. Litter box clean up is a breeze with pellets! As the pine pellets are used they break down and turn into saw dust. Depending on how many cats you have using the litter box, they will need to be changed every couple days to a couple weeks. When it is time to change the pine pellets, you simply dump the entire litter box and contents into a trash bag and watch everything easily slide out. There isn't anything sticking to the bottom that you have to scrape out, and the bottom of the litter box isn't wet, requiring you to completely clean the entire litter box before you can put it back for use. Once you have emptied the box, simply put in more fresh pine pellets and you are on your way! Using the paper pellets works the exact same way, except the paper pellets do not break down.
5. Scooping is not necessary with pellets! Urine is instantly absorbed by the pellets. Feces are not broken down or anything by the pellets, but the pellets do dry them out. Some people do prefer to scoop the feces out of the litter box, but that really depends on how many cats you have, and how often you are dumping the old pellets and replacing with fresh. Most cats do not dig in pellet litter, so they also do not cover their feces or urine.
The only downside we have found with pine pellets is at the end of the cycle when the pine pellets have almost entirely broken down. At that point the saw dust does begin to get tracked around a little. But to avoid that you simply can change out the pine pellets a little more often. The paper pellets are a bit more expensive, but don't break down and get tracked outside the litter box like the pine pellets do. Paper pellets are still cheaper than traditional litter as they last basically just as long as pine pellets. We like to add a little DE to our fresh pellets as well. This boost the odor control, and prevents bugs from getting into the litter box. Also, if a cat were to have worms, the DE will kill them, as well as their eggs, and help prevent the parasites from being spread to other cats in the home. You can learn more about DE on our Homeopathic page here.
If you decide that pellets are not for you and would prefer a traditional litter, we recommend using an all natural litter (either clumping or non-clumping). We like natural litters because kittens do tend to play in the litter box and sometimes unintentionally (or intentionally) ingest some of the litter. Our favorite traditional litter is sWheat Scoop Litter (no, that is not a typo). It is a clumping litter made from wheat, so it is all natural and completely safe if kittens decide to eat it. We absolutely love it for multiple cats! It is very low tracking and has great odor control. You can find this litter on Amazon, Chewy.
**We do not recommend Pretty Litter as we have heard many stories of this litter being ingested by cats through grooming and becoming very sick, or even dying.**
No matter what litter you decide to go with, you will want to make sure you have a large litter box, such as this one found on Amazon. They do make standard litter boxes in an extra large size, but some people use large plastic totes as well. If you are using a traditional litter instead of pellet litter, your kitten may start digging and kicking litter out of the box. So if that happens you may want a taller litter box, or get some sort of side extender to place on top. We do not use enclosed litter boxes so your kitten may refuse to use a litter box that has a top.
When you first bring your kitten home you will be contractually required to use pellet litter in a standard litter box for the first 30 days. If you would like to switch litters after the first month you have your kitten home, we would recommend switching them over slowly over the next month. Little by little put in more of the new litter and less of the pellets until they have completely switched over to the new litter.
If you are interested in an automatic litter box, about the only one we would recommend at this time is the Litter-Robot. We used one for a few years and loved it. However, when it broke after the warranty expired, we decided to try some other options instead of replacing it with another Litter-Robot.
We earn a small commission for anything purchased with one of the Amazon links on this page.
We strongly recommend you get pet insurance for your kitten. We may even be requiring all new families to have pet insurance on our kittens in the near future. Please click here for more information.
Grooming
Grooming your Maine Coon will be very important. Some Maine Coons don't need much grooming at all, while some need constant maintenance. It all depends on the hair type of your Maine Coon, and unfortunately their isn't any way to tell what level of groom maintenance he/she will need until they reach adulthood. Here are the tools we have and use on a daily basis.
This grooming set will be highly valuable to you! It has everything you need to keep your Maine Coon well groomed, and help if he/she gets a mat that you can't get out with a brush. Some Maine Coons require regular "sanitary trims", and you can easily do that with these tools. You will want to use a stainless steel, long-toothed comb, such as this, to comb your Maine Coon. Doing this will help hopefully prevent mats from the beginning. DO NOT ever use a FURmanitor on your Maine Coon! A FURmanitor actually cuts the undercoat and can permanently damage your cat's coat. There are several different brands that all have basically the same kind of tools. Do not use any of them!
This product is great for helping to get mats out, hopefully without needing to shave the the mats out.
You will also want a pair of nail-trimming scissors. We like these clippers found on Amazon. If you prefer a different style, these clippers are also good.
Some Maine Coons are prone to "runny" eyes, or will get eye "crusties" in the inside corners. This does not necessarily mean they are sick or that anything is wrong with them, especially if it happens on a daily basis. (Sudden runny eyes may be a sign of a respiratory infection). To help combat that and keep the fur around their eyes clean and beautiful, you can use these wipes that are wonderful!
We do not give our cats or kittens full-blown baths unless it is necessary. Instead we use this waterless, foam shampoo to keep our cats and kittens looking and smelling clean.
Vitamins
Vitamins and Supplements
Unless cats are breeding, there usually isn't a need for them to take a daily vitamin. They will however benefit from certain supplements. An immune system booster, probiotic, and Cosequin (when they get older), are all great things for a Maine Coon to have on a daily basis to help them stay healthy.
All of our Maine Coons are given several supplements daily. Anything that is a powder (or can be crushed into a powder) get mixed into their dry food, and liquids are added straight into their water. Here are the links to the supplements we recommend. You can choose between the liquid and chewable for some of them. We recommend crushing the entire bag and then scooping out a little and mix it in your kitten's dry food every time you refill the food bowl. All of the supplements can be mixed into the dry food together, and your kitten will get the benefits of them all throughout the day! All of the supplements can be found on Amazon and come from VertiScience, which is a great and trusted brand for animal health.
These supplements will help with the overall health of your kitten, and are good to start giving when you first get your kitten home to help support growth and health. *If you are using colloidal silver, the immune booster and teeth supplement are not necessary.
Liquid Immune Booster Chewable Immune Booster
Teeth Health Hairballs Joint Health
A probiotic is another important thing to give your Maine Coon. Purina Beyond Simply dry food is made to help with digestion, but we do give a fiber supplement as well.
Probiotic Fiber
Once your kitten turns a year old, here are some other supplements that would be good to start him/her on. Some of them can be started before 1 year old, so be sure to read the directions to know which ones can be started early.
Urinary Track Health Kidney Health Omega 3+ Coenzyme Cardio Health Hip Support
If you are interested in some homeopathic and all-natural lifestyle options for your kitten (and possibly yourself) please click here to learn more.
All contracts need to be signed and the final payment for your kitten must be made when the kitten is 13 weeks old.
Odds and Ends
Here are just a few other things we have/use for my Maine Coons, along with the Amazon links for them.
- When you first get your kitten home we recommend you use a litter attractant to help your kitten. You buy it in a bottle and just mix it into the litter. It's as easy as that! And yes, you can still use a litter attractant with pellet litter. Here is the Amazon and Chewy link for a good litter attractant. This will help your kitten fine the litter box easier and encourage its use to hopefully prevent accidents while he/she is adjusting to their new home.
-You will eventually need a large cat carrier that can hold a 20+ pound Maine Coon. We like this one for normal use, or this one if you will be flying with your kitten and need a TSA Approved Carrier, or want a more compact design. We really enjoy our rolling cat carrier so we don't have to actually carry heavy cats to and from the vet's office. Here is a rolling cat carrier that we like. If you are looking for a backpack style carrier, this one is really great. *You will be required to bring your own carrier if you come to pick up your kitten from our home. We only allow kittens to leave our home in a carrier.
-A Feliway diffuser can help to calm your kitten when he/she first arrives at your home. It can also help in times of stress. You can also use this powder supplement to mix into their food instead of a diffuser.
-If you find that your kitten gets stressed on car rides or trips to the vet, you can try this Composure supplement to help him/her be less stressed.
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