All the great Maine Coon cats live in America. It is an American cat, after all. And Americans are better at doing ‘large’ than the Brits. But now we have one in the UK and we are very proud of him. His name is Ludo. He weighs 24.5 pounds (11 kg). He is 45 inches long and yet is only 17 months of age so he should continue growing. We’re told that Maine Coons do not reach maturity until several years of age. However, that last phase includes fating up but I think it is far to say that Ludo has not quite finished growing.
You can see in the photograph that he is a brown tabby-and-white. His has classic looks for this cat breed. His caretakers are Kelsey and Matthew Gill who live in West Yorkshire, which is in the North of England.
Mrs Gill runs a chip shop with her husband. Ludo is double the size of his siblings says Mrs Gill.
His character is typical of this breed. He is very friendly and affectionate. Some visitors are scared of him because of his size. He is the size of small-medium sized dog.
Not all Maine Coon cats are this size. It is a fallacy to think that they are because some of them are bigger than the average cat but not a great deal bigger, especially females. But the breed does throw up some very large cats and on average they are the largest domestic cat breed.
We know that an American Maine Coon called Stewie was the world’s longest domestic cat at 48.5 inches although he died in 2013 from cancer. Well, we can see that Ludo is a mere 3 inches behind and therefore it seems possible that he just might end up being the world’s longest domestic cat.
Long does not necessarily mean big. Maine Coons are known to be leggy and long. The are described as ‘substantial’ in size by the cat fancy but I think it is fair to say that their uneven, medium-long fur hides a rather slender body.
Thanks Mathew. I’ll go visit Facebook and take a look 😉 .
Ludo is 28 pounds now and is far bigger than what he was in the above pictures! This is his facebook page! – https://www.facebook.com/LudotheCat