John Popp
Site Supporter
Wow, some assertions made here with little basis and then questioning about someones obviously successful business model.
First of all, the market decides where pricing falls. If a kitten is priced too high, it wouldn't sell. If kittens are priced too low, supply won't meet demand. Some catteries standing in the market, length of time in business and built in customer base will also add value to their kittens. A larger cattery will also have a better pulse on the marketplace than a smaller one, more transactions, more customers and more kittens.
Any long standing breeder, prior to there being f4 and f5 SVs, that has been breeding servals with domestics has had bengals in their program. It was in part to promote better health in F1 SVs and a great deal of heartache went into producing the first F1 Savannahs. Small litters, high mortality rates and a need to find/breed cats that were more adept to breed with servals and in part the answer was found with bengals.
As for SE, I am not aware that they currently use bengals in their program. I also know they have, and with the promotion of better health in their SV breeding stock it shouldn't be chastised but welcomed. Having been to their facility, I didn't see a single bengal, although I'm certain they still have some, saw 3 servals and 20+ savannahs. That certainly wasn't all the cats that make up their breeding program, perhaps half, but a great deal of cats and I was pretty overwhelmed during my brief visit.
Like Rascal, my F3 from SE doesn't have any bengal in it's lineage that I can track. I know it's there somewhere, just that I can't see it. There's also likelihood that customers will see an "Experimental" breed in a kittens lineage of which the origins are undisclosed and with some certainty I would say there is some bengal in there. In that light, and I don't think they make any secrets of it, their kittens are bred more for market demand than for strict adherence to TICA breed standards. Being a personality first buyer, rosettes or some marbling wouldn't have bothered me although I ended of with a fairly classic example of an F3 Savannah.
The "Elite Kitten" thing doesn't strike me as odd at all and is clearly in part a marketing ploy, although not without basis. If there is a customer out there that wants to spend an extra $3k on an already pricey kitten then SE is making a sound business move to take their money. Nearly every breeder does this to some extent, having a scale for how they price their kittens, just not many that have placed an up charge to the kittens they find to be exceptional. It's also a much more difficult tact to employ for a smaller breeder that is placing less than 20 cats per annum than a cattery that is likely placing beyond 100 kittens.
So as an SE customer and not removed from finding some faults in their organization, We still decided this was where our second savannah kitten would come from. We want that "elite" kitten but not in terms of his ears, his spots or the length of his tail. We are clearly and outspokenly a personality first customer. The first of his litter mates to seek out human interaction and once there provide clown like antics. It's the first prerequisite we have placed on our kitten acquisitions for more than 20 years and SE more than filled our dreams and aspirations with Chongo, more than we could ever imagined.
BTW, as I was typing this I heard a loud bang as Chongo has once again found a way to move what seemingly was thought not to be in the realm of things that could be moved. A very large room divider, over 7' tall and stretched out over 12' long which was built by a local artist. Our cats have certainly gotten up on it before, a couple of them certainly weighing in at more than Chongo, have never even managed to make the thing teeter. Even myself at 6'4" and a tad over 200lbs have bumped into it in the dead of night and in the 15 years it's been here I never imagined it could have been toppled.
The room divider is now in need of some minor repair, is permanently out of circulation in our household and will probably make it to Trish's studio for use as a prop. I'm pretty sure that's where it came from in the first place and I'll probably spend the rest of my weekend trying to reconstruct the physics that made it happen. On a more positive note, besides being a little spooked by the event, Chongo is 100% OK and acting a little more reserved than usual as I'm sure his wild ride caused his heart to speed up as much as it did mine.
First of all, the market decides where pricing falls. If a kitten is priced too high, it wouldn't sell. If kittens are priced too low, supply won't meet demand. Some catteries standing in the market, length of time in business and built in customer base will also add value to their kittens. A larger cattery will also have a better pulse on the marketplace than a smaller one, more transactions, more customers and more kittens.
Any long standing breeder, prior to there being f4 and f5 SVs, that has been breeding servals with domestics has had bengals in their program. It was in part to promote better health in F1 SVs and a great deal of heartache went into producing the first F1 Savannahs. Small litters, high mortality rates and a need to find/breed cats that were more adept to breed with servals and in part the answer was found with bengals.
As for SE, I am not aware that they currently use bengals in their program. I also know they have, and with the promotion of better health in their SV breeding stock it shouldn't be chastised but welcomed. Having been to their facility, I didn't see a single bengal, although I'm certain they still have some, saw 3 servals and 20+ savannahs. That certainly wasn't all the cats that make up their breeding program, perhaps half, but a great deal of cats and I was pretty overwhelmed during my brief visit.
Like Rascal, my F3 from SE doesn't have any bengal in it's lineage that I can track. I know it's there somewhere, just that I can't see it. There's also likelihood that customers will see an "Experimental" breed in a kittens lineage of which the origins are undisclosed and with some certainty I would say there is some bengal in there. In that light, and I don't think they make any secrets of it, their kittens are bred more for market demand than for strict adherence to TICA breed standards. Being a personality first buyer, rosettes or some marbling wouldn't have bothered me although I ended of with a fairly classic example of an F3 Savannah.
The "Elite Kitten" thing doesn't strike me as odd at all and is clearly in part a marketing ploy, although not without basis. If there is a customer out there that wants to spend an extra $3k on an already pricey kitten then SE is making a sound business move to take their money. Nearly every breeder does this to some extent, having a scale for how they price their kittens, just not many that have placed an up charge to the kittens they find to be exceptional. It's also a much more difficult tact to employ for a smaller breeder that is placing less than 20 cats per annum than a cattery that is likely placing beyond 100 kittens.
So as an SE customer and not removed from finding some faults in their organization, We still decided this was where our second savannah kitten would come from. We want that "elite" kitten but not in terms of his ears, his spots or the length of his tail. We are clearly and outspokenly a personality first customer. The first of his litter mates to seek out human interaction and once there provide clown like antics. It's the first prerequisite we have placed on our kitten acquisitions for more than 20 years and SE more than filled our dreams and aspirations with Chongo, more than we could ever imagined.
BTW, as I was typing this I heard a loud bang as Chongo has once again found a way to move what seemingly was thought not to be in the realm of things that could be moved. A very large room divider, over 7' tall and stretched out over 12' long which was built by a local artist. Our cats have certainly gotten up on it before, a couple of them certainly weighing in at more than Chongo, have never even managed to make the thing teeter. Even myself at 6'4" and a tad over 200lbs have bumped into it in the dead of night and in the 15 years it's been here I never imagined it could have been toppled.
The room divider is now in need of some minor repair, is permanently out of circulation in our household and will probably make it to Trish's studio for use as a prop. I'm pretty sure that's where it came from in the first place and I'll probably spend the rest of my weekend trying to reconstruct the physics that made it happen. On a more positive note, besides being a little spooked by the event, Chongo is 100% OK and acting a little more reserved than usual as I'm sure his wild ride caused his heart to speed up as much as it did mine.
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