We are hiring! We are looking for passionate, motivated, young (or young at heart) breeders like us who could grasp the essence of the Siberian cat and fall in love with it.
When I think of Siberian cats, the image of my beautiful Irvin comes to my mind: he is sweet, extremely intelligent, affectionate and despite the wild look (broad head, strong body and slightly severe but dignified Siberian male expression), he is the most gentle creature ever.
Here is a list of our goals at clean genealogy and at the club:
We want to leave blood lines that have suffered the least possible influence from other breeds for the future.
We provide education for new breeders and a mentoring program.
We provide guidance on your breeding program and we consult only the best specialists around. At the moment we are seeking advice in several matters from Lorraine Shelton, a member of the TICA genetics board and author responsible for the update of the most important book regarding feline genetics: Roy Robinson’s feline genetics book.
Onofre Martinez from ES*Siestadream cattery is an active member and one of the oldest breeders in Europe. Onofre is a great mentor. Instead of giving you “all in a plate” he will give you the tools you need to make your own choices and consistent work.
Alexander Kolesnikov, one of the best and most respected Russian breeders in the world, is also a part of the FB group and he often graces us with his insights and most welcome feedback whenever we are in need of light.
Merja Tolonen from Amantes cattery is also among the very first European breeders and she gave a huge contribution to the breed with her work and put up a very good fight when the “mixers invasion” took place 15 years ago. She is also present at the group and always there for encouragement or when we have precise questions about cats, feedback from older blood lines and you get a chance to have a peek of those beautiful Amantes kittens before others.
Maria Pavlosky is also a member of the group and she is a live Siberian encyclopedia and knows basically everything about the history of breed. She is also one of the first Siberian breeders and has been breeding over 25 years. She owns rare old lines and she kept these cats without any nem influence over all these years.
We are basically surrounded by the greatest and the best (literally).
We also have a Siberian database under construction where you will be able to check which group a certain cat belongs to in a glimpse, a very selective and professional foundation kitten program and a forum.
All kitten transactions are facilitated between members of the group: kitten exchange, stud service, kitten sales etc.
Here is the profile of the breeders we are looking for:
You have total conviction that Siberians are an aboriginal breed and want to preserve and keep these cats as close as possible as they used to be and still are now.
You know for fact that 99% of nem are hand made, and the 1% remaining are circumstantial nem (the result of an encounter between a sib and a colourpoint house cat). Therefore you know the cp pattern was brought in purposefully and that this foreign mutation should not have been encouraged even less bred and it puts in danger the gene pool of the natural cat.
You understand that the “all in one” cat is nem, Siberians are not a man hand made street cat / house cat collection, while nem clearly is.
You understood clearly the difference between a natural breed and a “all in one” man hand created breed.
Siberians were meant to be like Norvegians and Maine coon, a forest breed and there wouldn’t be a “cp variety” obviously since the gene doesn’t belong to there area where these cats evolved. If it wasn’t by the very poor judgement and choices of a few who were clearly pushed by economical interest, nem would not have been bred or would have been bred apart as a different breed.
You are passionate and you love Siberians.
You like to take challenges
You like to read, research and you are an inquisitive person
You are a straight forward type of person, you like to work in a team and understand that every team has its rules and goals and the success of one is the success of all. No jealousy or petty feelings are allowed.
Here are the questions people ask often:
Do we have enough cats to work this way or would we be narrowing the gene pool and raising inbreeding CO?
Of course there are WAY more cats from group 4 but all the lines they have, we have as well and it is actually quite the opposite. WE HAVE more lines available than other breeders! THANKS to the hard work and conviction of a few incorruptible breeders like Maria Pavlovsky from Cica, Ramona Breitsprecher from Schlosspavillion, Melinda from Meda Garden that kept these lines for us without any nem influence (group 1).
Do you encourage inbreeding, line breeding?
As much as I am totally against breeding brothers and sisters, cousins etc if you want to reach a coherent Siberian type, doing total outcrosses all the time will make things harder for you to fix type in your lines.
So we don’t encourage inbreeding, there might be a few cats in group 1 that have a higher inbreeding Co (these cats are known to be safe and tested very often. They are important working tools) but we encourage high diversity and we test all our cats with My cat DNA In fact, Clean Genealogy has been producing amazing pedigrees with very high diversity levels.
We encourage the diversity on the lines and deep analyses of pedigree for each match (please read the page on How to make a match.
Are you strict on your kitten contracts and will this affect the matches which could be made, severely limiting the choices for a breeder who only has a few cats?
If you buy a kitten from a clean genealogy member, it will be up to you to negotiate the terms directly with the breeder. I repeat to everyone that at Clean Genealogy, we are NOT the feline POLICE! Some breeders have show cats they want to keep that are group 4; some have lines that they have been working on for a long time and investing in tests, also group 4, etc. If you believe in the philosophy and in the project and want to give your contribution somehow and participate, you could do it with one couple! If you change your mind, no one is going to come after you but we ask respect for our work and contracts. If you bought a cat from a member and change your mind, use this cat for pet kittens only and respect your engagement.
If you cannot participate for whatever reason: Too many cats group 4 already or “I only want to produce kittens for pets” or “it would be too expensive for me to change my team even gradually” you can still participate with your encouragement and support. We accept it gladly.
We are not nem haters. I personally think that it is good to be able to provide all sorts of looks to pet clients. Some might dream of owning a large CP cat. It would be great to have support from open-minded new breeders. If you believe that people SHOULD be able to find pure traditional lines in 10 years, even if you work with nem, Great, we accept your support!
We don’t like the lack of respect for our work and mixers who go after beginners, hide their nem (meaning selling cats saying there is no nem in the genealogy to people who don’t know how to look the whole genealogy) or do any sort of doubtful actions.
We are outnumbered by mixers and, unfortunately, also by traditional breeders who cannot change their teams and end up working with group 4 cats, so we don’t have any illusions about taking over the Siberian world now in the immediate future. Still, we do have the firm intention to make these lines live as long as possible to give the option to future Siberian breeders to work like us and the pleasure of being able to see and meet a real Siberian cat.
Considering we have a few strong-minded and determined ladies and gents in the group, we have a very good chance of making Clean Genealogy very strong in the future. New generations have easy access to information, they read and study, and we are seeing more and more young people join.
We already have over 100 catteries around the globe, and they are the very best ones.
One thing is sure: without this movement, all bloodlines will be mixed and further mixing encouraged. They might manage to keep the “look” going for a few more years, but that Siberian essence will be lost.
Daniela Barros.