SavannahLuv
Site Supporter
To be honest, my 1st kitten Kai (my avatar pic) from SE ended up having FIP and passed away at only 5 months old... very heartbreaking experience. Holly was very understanding and there were zero problems with her honoring our contract. Instead of a partial refund, I opted to get a replacement kitten. I was given 1st pick of any F2 litter and Holly kept in contact with me via text or email each time a litter was born and would send me pictures before posting any online. I wasn't ready for another kitten for a while as I was still grieving so I passed on close to 20 kittens until I was finally ready. After the holidays, Holly had contacted me since there were 5 F2 litters born around Christmas (2015) and there ended up being 4 boys and several girls. Any of the girls (as pets) or 3 of the boys, she would've replaced at no additional cost since she considered them to be of equal value/quality to Kai. Instead I chose Shango even though he ended up costing me a little bit more money. It was hard to pick a new kitten since they were only a little over a week old and all looked so similar so I relied a lot on Holly's expertise as to how she expected them to develop based on the breeding pair and other siblings. She was spot on with how great she expected Shango to turn out, at least IMO. While he was on the much higher price range of a F2... actually priced closer to a F1, I have no regrets and LOVE my fur kid.
I would have no hesitation to buy another kitten from SE, but they probably wouldn't be my 1st choice. If there ever comes a time when I feel like Shango would enjoy having another playmate (other than myself), I've had my eye on a few of the breeders on this forum and would go with one of them instead. While SE does produce some great kittens, they are one of the much larger catteries (part of why they always have kittens available) and are definitely more of a business. I've noticed their prices are on the higher side and they don't really seem to care who they are selling to. Pretty much, if you have the money you can have a kitten. A lot of the smaller breeders, like the ones of this forum, you can tell aren't in it for the money. They do what they do for the love of the breed and are concerned about the welfare of their kittens instead of treating the process like a basic sales transaction. To them you are adopting a new family member and they want to make sure the kitten is a good match for its new home and they are also there to offer support after the sale. While SE was easy to deal with when there was a problem, there was never really much support when it came to basic questions or responses when I'd send updates on how well Shango was doing. To me it seemed like once the kitten was sold and shipped to its new home, it was then forgotten about as far as SE was concerned. I guess that's fine, but being a 1st time Savannah owner I would have preferred a breeder who offered more support. Luckily there is this wonderful forum with lots and lots of useful information.
Sorry for such a long post, but I guess a lot of the choice comes down to what you expect out of the breeder.
Last edited:
I also had them do blood work just to have it on file to compare to if he were to ever get sick in the future. He did great with the shot, somewhat tolerated having blood drawn, then completely refused to cooperate for a nail trimming. He won 
