Needing Advice!!

[Beth92]

After the sad passing of my beloved fur baby. Me and my partner are currently looking at getting a kitten to fill the void, I have found a lovely Ragdoll kitten for sale both parents GCCF registered. The kitten is up for sale at £875 (which I feel is a lot of money) and they are not GCCF registered. Breeder is getting them vaccinated and microchipped and will be ready soon she invited us round to view the kittens last night (face masks and hand sanitisers used) and I fell in love with a completely different kitten, whilst there I noticed lillies on the table where the kittens play which worried me alittle due to them being toxic to cats. I’m torn do I over look the price and get a kitten or try find another? with the fact they may of ingested toxic lillies and hope nothing comes of it when we get her home I’m scared incase I’ve spent all that money and something bad happens?


Any advice would be much appreciated
Thanks

[Ruth B]

Ragdolls are wonderful cats and from what I can see £800 - £1000 is about normal for a registered kitten, unregistered ones tend to be a bit cheaper. I had a Ragdoll a few years ago from a rescue and would love another myself so I have checked a bit on prices.

If both parents are registered, has the breeder given you any indication as to why the kittens haven't been. I know the Ragdoll Breeders clubs keep a record of breeders who have been struck off, so that would be my first place to visit, otherwise it would be worth contacting the breeder and asking her about it.

Phoning her up would also give you a chance to ask about the flowers, say you thought they looked like Lilies and it made you concerned, they might be able to turn around and say they are something else entirely which you can then check out online to make sure that that plant matches what you saw. If they say they are lilies then you can act surprised that they have them around their cats due to the toxicity and danger they present, it could be they don't realise, although any cat breeder should know that Lilies are seriously poisonous. if they don't seem to care or claim that it's fine as the cats go no where near them then I would look for another breeder. The only good thing I can add is that Lilies are so toxic that the effects of any poisoning is likely to happen very quickly, particularly in a kitten, if there is any sign of the kitten not being well,(the breeder should be willing to do live video chats and show you the kitten a day or two before you buy them), then you can postpone it for a few days, you don't want to separate it from it's Mum while it isn't well is a good excuse, and then have it when it has recovered if it was just a natural illness, or take your money elsewhere if it doesn't recover. Hopefully they haven't asked you to put too much down as a deposit to reserve the kitten, should anything happen to the kitten, you should be able to get any deposit back.

Hopefully you just misidentified the flowers and everything will be fine and you can enjoy your new kitten from them. Unfortunately I've heard so much about back yard breeders that it makes me a little paranoid when it comes to finding a good breeder to have a new kitten from.

[Beth92]

Hi Ruth,

Thank you for your reply- The breeder had said she hasn’t registered them due to Covid and the price being a lot higher than it is now and potential owners not being able to afford them. She has asked if we are wanting them GCCF registered we can get them registered but will be at additional cost.
She did inform us yesterday that she isn’t a actual registered breeder and that mum and dad Ragdoll cat are GCCF and showed us that mum was GCCF registered but not dad as he was a stud. I didn’t want to bring up the lilly situation in her home as I didn’t want to insult her in her own home,I know that they were lillies as my mum loves them and always has them so I’m familiar with the flower. As much I would love to have a kitten from this litter doubts are in my mind about it and I can’t be swayed just by how beautiful and adorable the look and have to look elsewhere for my next fur baby.

[Ruth B]

I have to admit,the more you say the more alarm bells start ringing. Gorgeous as those kittens were, I'm not sure I would be happy to have one from there and if you are certain those flowers were Lilies then I would certainly look for another breeder. Either the breeder doesn't care what happens to her cats and kittens, which would be odd as if nothing else they are bringing money in, or those cats aren't normally allowed in that room, in which case where do they normally live. I am sure you will find another Ragdoll kitten that you are happy with fairly easily. It is hard, but sometimes our instincts are just pointing out things that we fail to see consciously, follow your head and your instinct not your heart.

[Mollycat]

I'm not a fan of pedigree cats as a whole - no offence intended to any one individual I am simply concerned about the whole thing and having owned one which happened to be a Raggie I will never do so again.

Not sure what the rules are here but I do know in some breeders' rules a queen that has been mated to an unregistered tom loses her own pedigree status and is then considered "spoiled" and the same as any other common moggy. That doesn't change who she is of course, nor the pure breed or character of her kittens, but it ought to drop the price a fair bit.

There is currently an advert up in my home town for Ragdoll kittens, both parents registered, £795 and kittens sold unregistered unless requested with no mention of price for registering. The thing with unregistered parents is they may not be registered because of some identified faults, eg HCM or PKD which are both common in this breed and expensive and deadly. If you want a Raggie kitten I would want them tested and certified free from both of those genetic defects for a start, which would also push the price tag up but save you a LOT of expense and heartache later.

As I understand it, there is normally a kitten contract that specifies any kitten not registered as breeding quality must be neutered and the breeder may withhold the papers until evidence is shown that the kitten has been neutered ... you see where I'm going with this and potential reasons the sire may be unregistered. My boy was a retired stud but he still came with a contract, was updated with the GCCF as no longer active and neutered, I informed them when he died, and because of a clause that stated if I could no longer keep him he had to be returned to the breeder I got him from, I kept in touch with her for the rest of his life. That £800-1,000 tag is supposed to buy you something, not an under the counter unregistered moggy.

Overall my advice is, if something feels not quite right, walk away. Apart from anything else paying money to people who don't do things right is not "rescuing" kittens from a home where they have lilies on the table, it's perpetuating a trade. Don't let a cute button nose and big blue eyes overrule parting with the best part of 900 quid with the cost of neutering on top.

[alanc]

Pedigree kittens have obviously gone up in price a bit over the last 10 years - Badger an Tilly cost me £700 for the pair of them (would have been £400 for one). As Maine Coons, there was a bit more of them than a Ragdoll! That included vaccination but not microchipping, but they were GCCF registered. A word of advice, check what vaccinations are included in the package, I found that FeLV had not been included (not considered required for cats who did not mix with other cats but definitely needed if you expect your cat to meet other cats) and had to get it done when Badger and Tilly went in for neutering. As Mollycat says, there is usually a kitten contract to say they are not fully yours until they have been neutered, I signed one for Badger and Tilly.

[Kay]

Could you be persuaded to pop into your nearest rescue and look at the kittens there - you would save a lot of money, and what you did pay would go to rescuing more cats

and you are sure to fall in love with at least some of them - most kittens are irresistible