X-Stat.de

Well, actually we didn't want to have an own stud. We informed ourselves very properly and knew exactly that it wouldn't be easy at all. Of course, everybody dreams that " his " own stud will not spray. But these studs are few and far between and we don't believe in this kind of luck as little as we believe that easter bunnies do exist in reality.

We live in a wooden house and the urine would soak the wood in a way that the offensive smell would stay for ever and the only chance to get rid of it would be to burn down the house. Apart from that, studs are always ready for mating and press the females often really hard and we didn't want any stress in the group. And of course we want to plan the matings ourselves and not the studs. Under these circumstances we knew that keeping a stud would be impossible.

During our first two years as breeder, we soon noticed that it isn't easy at all to find the right stud for our females. A lot of breeders keep their studs only for their own breeding because they have restrictions not to give stud services. At this point we are deeply grateful to find breeders like Sylvie, Petra and Bettina who gave us matings with their wonderful studs of exellent lines. The Somali breed is quite rare and you can't find beautiful studs just around the corner. It took us and our girls a few thousand of kilometres in the first years and it meant a lot of stress for them. If they don't pregnant you have to travel the same distance again. In spring 2007 we made the decision to keep our own stud. This decision was the foundation stone to rebuild our complete garden area.

We build an own studroom for our future stud. Easyly accessible from our kitchen. We established two cat trees, a lot of shelves to climb on and some kind of bed in his new home. The room has two large windows from where he can survey the garden. In winter the room is heatable. Additionally he has got an own outdoor area in the garden, accessible through a kind of tunnel. The outdoor area is protected all around and so our stud is able to roam around all day long. Only at night all doors are locked.

The studroom and his outdoor area are a part of our completely fenced garden. All our cats love the garden and the studroom. At daytime they are all together in the garden. When the weather is fine we are mostly outside with our beauties. When it is bad weather the stud is allowed to stay in the house for some time with a spray proof kind of trousers. :-))))

Despite all efforts to do the best for our studs we believe that the best place for a cat is well integrated into the family. That's the reason why we don't keep him potent for too long. We plan a few matings for him and determine whether we want to give stud services. After that he will be neutered. Our current stud Kajzer af Revebo started spraying after his second mating in June 2008 and will be neutered in the near future. So we keep the time when he is not fully integrated into our family rather short. We believe that we find a good compromise between breeding and in the behalf of our stud.