A Michael Broad Blog
“Inbreeding depression” is a euphemism for a general lack of health in an individual purebred cat which has been selectively bred (using artificial selection) for appearance, which automatically incorporates inbreeding. Cat breeders often have to inbreed their purebred cats in order to fix their appearance. This is because the appearance is held on a …
There will have to be far more controlled, selective breeding of domestic cats to create a companion animal which is more able to keep up with our expectations than is currently the case. Dr. Bradshaw in his book Cat Sense states that up until about 30 years ago the domestic cat kept up with …
Can a cat’s personality be linked to their coat colour and type? Apparently, the answer is yes, although I had always thought that this was not strictly possible despite the fact that, anecdotally, many cat owners link coat colour and type to personality such as tortoiseshell cats having ‘catitude’ and red tabby cats being …
Selective cat breeding is what cat breeding is all about. So, what is it? This is an outline discussion. It is slightly controversial in keeping with my slightly rebellious nature. Before I continue, I would like to say that I am not against cat breeding. But I am for high levels of responsibility in …
Through Persian cat selective breeding the appearance of the cat that you know (probably the extreme Persian look) has been altered over a period of time (substantially over the last 30-40 years) resulting in a facial appearance that has been described as “pansy-like” by the Cat Fanciers’ Association (CFA), and “peeked”, “peke-faced”, “extreme”, “ultra”, …
The two reasons why domestic cats are selectively bred, primarily by cat breeders, is to create cats with a certain appearance and secondarily cats with a certain character. Selective breeding is the opposite to natural selection. Natural selection refers to the evolution of the species as espoused by Charles Darwin in his book On …
I’ve picked out three pictures of blue British Shorthair cats which I consider to be bred to an extreme level (I added a fourth). I think it’s instructive to have a look at these pictures of cats. The first one you might describe as monstrous. It is definitely a cat but is nothing like …
Domestic cats are already adapting to modern human living but what about the long term future, the 22nd and 23rd centuries? Cats are more sociable than they were when first domesticated some 9,500 to perhaps even 14,500 years ago. However, they are a cat’s whisker away from their wild cat ancestor in terms of …
