More Savannah Questions

[John Campbell]

I am still in the early learning stages and have a few more questions, and probably more to come in the future.

1.) I have figured out the basics of like F3B and so forth, but the % Serval still has me baffled. I have a few assumptions, but we all know what assume does to us when we break it down.

2.) Why does it seem like male's are more expensive than females.... Even as pets, and it also seems that there is a wide range of cost even between kittens from the same litter.

3.) I see a lot of scammers trying to sell Savannah's. What is the best way to detect these crooks?

4.) At 12 weeks are most Savannah's litter trained?

5.) I am also looking at the toilet training program (http://www.skymall.com/cat-toilet-training-system/DST101.html?start=7&catid=10720#start=1) and I understand that most Savannahs are very trainable. How easy is it to train a Savannah Cat to use the toilet?

6.) I see TICA Legislative Committee. What does TICA stand for and is there a website for them?

7.) From another tread in concerns to FIP disease. Is there anyway to find out if a breeder has a history of cats with this disease and it is contagious to dogs?

8.) I have already decided on a breeder, however, after reading some things especially in the area of virus's and other issues, is it better to go with a larger breeder, or a smaller breeder?

Thanks in advance for any info.
John

 

[SV Dad]

Ok, I'll try to tackle this.
Question #1. I believe you are talking about "theoretical" percentage Serval. Let's say you have a F1 mother. so 50%, and you breed her back to a Serval sucessfully. Theoretically 100% plus 50% divided by two, yields 75%. But genetics are a crapshot. You may actually get more or less depending upon the DNA crosslinking and expression. So you get a theoretical number. Oh, and as this is breed back to a Serval this would still be a F1. The number behind the F, is the generations after the Serval.
#2. Why are males more expensive. Demand, primarily. Within the same litter, preferred expressed markings.
#3. Scammers and money. Well this is all about opportunity and high yield. As these are expensive cats, folks are looking to shave some serious money. This is where scammers are predating the naive. If it looks too cheap, or it doesn't have the look and feel of a normal transaction, or has some sorry BS story attached to it, or english skilled as a second language, you should be looking somewhere else.
#4 Yes.
#5. No personal experience with this, but there is a thread on this site about the success of this training.
#6 The International Cat Association. Google it. This organization recognizes and sets the breed standard, and registers the genealogy of the cats.
#7 I don't have enough knowledge of this to give a accurate and short answer. Others can certainly help on this.
#8. Your call. Responsible breeders will absolutely make sure this is out of their cattery, period. I went with a big breeder and have not been disappointed. It helped eyeballing the cattery to build confidence.
Really good questions, John

 

[Brigitte Cowell]

I am still in the early learning stages and have a few more questions, and probably more to come in the future.

1.) I have figured out the basics of like F3B and so forth, but the % Serval still has me baffled. I have a few assumptions, but we all know what assume does to us when we break it down.

2.) Why does it seem like male's are more expensive than females.... Even as pets, and it also seems that there is a wide range of cost even between kittens from the same litter.

3.) I see a lot of scammers trying to sell Savannah's. What is the best way to detect these crooks?

4.) At 12 weeks are most Savannah's litter trained?

5.) I am also looking at the toilet training program (http://www.skymall.com/cat-toilet-training-system/DST101.html?start=7&catid=10720#start=1) and I understand that most Savannahs are very trainable. How easy is it to train a Savannah Cat to use the toilet?

6.) I see TICA Legislative Committee. What does TICA stand for and is there a website for them?

7.) From another tread in concerns to FIP disease. Is there anyway to find out if a breeder has a history of cats with this disease and it is contagious to dogs?

8.) I have already decided on a breeder, however, after reading some things especially in the area of virus's and other issues, is it better to go with a larger breeder, or a smaller breeder?

Thanks in advance for any info.
John

(1) The Serval % is an estimate... and theoretical only. This usually is only important when either the cat is the product of successive breeding back to the Serval (so when F1 is 75% rather than the standard 50% you would get breeding a Serval to a domestic) or when selecting a lower generation male to use in a breeding program (because we saw ~10% infertility with just outcrossed F5A males, it seems a good idea to estimate how high the Serval % would be in our SBT males at those generations too).

(2)Male pets are generally more expensive than female pet kittens of the same generation &/or litter just because the males tend to grow taller/larger. When most pet buyers are fixated on size then the females can be discounted in comparison because of that. They will proportionally be ever bit as cool looking and I think often more fun as I think the girls tend to be the mischievous ones

(3) To avoid scams, the easiest way is to choose a breeder that is either listing kittens on this forum or listed on www.savannahcat.com . Both check out the breeders that list with them, and both will delete breeder listings if unethical actions are reported and found true. Else, I think asking lots of questions tends to help, you can usually detect the red flags from the answers. Breeders that want you to pay via Western Union for example, want you to pay a shipping service (although there are some that use reputable services their credentials can usually be checked)... I'd think a good test might be saying you wish to fly there to pick up your kitten. If they won't even consider meeting you at the airport with the kitten (some single women breeders could easily be worried about having you come to their house) then you might be suspicious.

(4) YES. By that age any kitten ought to be litter trained! Generally I find they train easily, as soon as they are wobbling out of the crate they are following mama to the litterbox and checking it out. So much easier than puppies!

(5) I started doing this years ago, we had our first 2 Savannahs pretty well trained but then we got a third that thought an open toilet bowl was a wading pool and that was the end of that. Some cats take to it well, but not all...so be prepared to have to deal with a litterbox if they don't take to toilets so well...

(6) TICA is The International Cat Association, the cat registry that registers our Savannahs. There are two main cat registries in the US, CFA (Cat Fanciers Association) is the other one but they won't accept breeds with "wild blood". Some of us are members of TICA's Legislative Committee which means we are focused on helping fight anti-breeder and anti-hybrid cat legislation... the Animal Rights extremist groups like PETA and HSUS are continually pushing legislation to eventually wipe out pet ownership :-(

(7) You can ask your breeder but I don't think anyone keeps track of which breeder has had what disease...it would be impossible to maintain as that would require every breeder to disclose every illness a kitten of theirs has had. Just not feasible. No, FIP is not contagious to dogs, it's not even transmissible to cats. Once the benign Coronavirus has mutated to FIP it is no longer shed by the cat.

(8) I think there are advantages and disadvantages to both. Neither is going to be more or less of a disease risk, it depends on the individual on how good a job they do. My preference has always been smaller breeders as I believe they are more focused on the individual cats and a larger operation is more like livestock farming. That's my personal opinion. The advantage of a larger breeder is that they have kittens available ALL the time, and if something goes wrong they will have a replacement kitten ready immediately...

 

[Pam Flachs]

Great responses, Brigitte and Rascaldad!

 

[John Campbell]

(3) To avoid scams, the easiest way is to choose a breeder that is either listing kittens on this forum or listed on www.savannahcat.com . Both check out the breeders that list with them, and both will delete breeder listings if unethical actions are reported and found true. Else, I think asking lots of questions tends to help, you can usually detect the red flags from the answers. Breeders that want you to pay via Western Union for example, want you to pay a shipping service (although there are some that use reputable services their credentials can usually be checked)... I'd think a good test might be saying you wish to fly there to pick up your kitten. If they won't even consider meeting you at the airport with the kitten (some single women breeders could easily be worried about having you come to their house) then you might be suspicious.

Thanks for the great replies.... I was unaware of that website, even though I am surprised that I had not found that site already... The breeder that I had selected is on the list, plus what looks like a local breeder to my area, so that is a lot more info that I had already had.

John

 

[Patti]

I am still in the early learning stages and have a few more questions, and probably more to come in the future.

1.) I have figured out the basics of like F3B and so forth, but the % Serval still has me baffled. I have a few assumptions, but we all know what assume does to us when we break it down.
After the first generation (F1) is it all theoretical when it comes to guessing Serval percent. Theoretically an F2 has 25%, an F3 12.5%, etc. but genetically it can be much different. At this point in time there are no genetic tests to determine serval percentage.

2.) Why does it seem like male's are more expensive than females.... Even as pets, and it also seems that there is a wide range of cost even between kittens from the same litter.
If you are looking at pet Savannahs then males are usually larger than females (a desired trait, even though it is NOT emphasized with our breed)so for many more desirable, and in later generations they can be more expensive because they are fertile so can produce MANY Savannah kittens in their lifetime.

3.) I see a lot of scammers trying to sell Savannah's. What is the best way to detect these crooks?
Scammers come in all 'colors', my best advice is to ask for references, and seek references from other customers such as on this forum.

4.) At 12 weeks are most Savannah's litter trained?
Absolutely!!

5.) I am also looking at the toilet training program (http://www.skymall.com/cat-toilet-training-system/DST101.html?start=7&catid=10720#start=1) and I understand that most Savannahs are very trainable. How easy is it to train a Savannah Cat to use the toilet?
It's been done...

6.) I see TICA Legislative Committee. What does TICA stand for and is there a website for them?
The International Cat Association: www.tica.org

7.) From another tread in concerns to FIP disease. Is there anyway to find out if a breeder has a history of cats with this disease and it is contagious to dogs?
For the vast majority it doesn't really matter - FIP is a devastating disease, but for the most part is unexpected and unexplained, so even if a breeder has had a kitten or cat come down with FIP (most have) it doesn't mean that they are a bad breeder or that it will happen again. FIP is definitely NOT transmitted to dogs, and although the virus itself can be spread to other cats (estimates range between 85-95% of cats have the corona virus which is what FIP mutates from) only about 5% of cats (depending on the source quoted) actually convert to FIP.

8.) I have already decided on a breeder, however, after reading some things especially in the area of virus's and other issues, is it better to go with a larger breeder, or a smaller breeder?
Most people I know will recommend a small, in home breeder because the assumption is that more individual attention is given to the cats and kittens, but in truth it doesn't matter how many breeding cats one owns, if they are a conscientious breeder they will produce healthy, well adjusted kittens

Thanks in advance for any info.
John

 

[Trish Allearz]

Um I may have misread up there, but any honest responsible breeder is NOT going to tell you there is NO chance of a kitten with FIP coming from their Cattery. FIP has happened and continues to express itself from the large catteries to small, good breeder and bad alike. The difference is how the breeder handles it.
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[admin]

Um I may have misread up there, but any honest responsible breeder is NOT going to tell you there is NO chance of a kitten with FIP coming from their Cattery. FIP has happened and continues to express itself from the large catteries to small, good breeder and bad alike. The difference is how the breeder handles it.
Sent from my SGH-T769 using Tapatalk 2

What Trish said

 

[admin]

Um I may have misread up there, but any honest responsible breeder is NOT going to tell you there is NO chance of a kitten with FIP coming from their Cattery. FIP has happened and continues to express itself from the large catteries to small, good breeder and bad alike. The difference is how the breeder handles it.
Sent from my SGH-T769 using Tapatalk 2

What Trish and patti and Brigitte said...