The purpose of this page is to help breeders to obtain the best matches possible regarding genetic diversity, no matter if they adhere to the philosophy or not.
Consider this page as a present to the general public.
We share our work because we care about the breed.
There are a few things to take in consideration:
The health of the bloodlines.
Pawpeds has always been the most important tool we have and despite all the progress with genetic testing, Pawpeds is still very important and offering us a reliable HCM health program.
It is the ONLY unbiased and reliable HCM health program and CAPITAL for the breed.
When you buy a stud or queen, make your research about the health of the cats with all the available databases (like pawpeds or Siberian research) and also talking to the owner (s) of the cats in the bloodlines.
Once you buy the cat, you should test your cat with the laboratory My CAT DNA and PKD as well as HCM with a Pawpeds approved veterinary at 1/3 for PKD and at 1/3/5/7 years old for HCM.
Risk cats should be tested every year. Never mate a cat that has not been tested. Some extremely careful breeders might even wait that studs and queens reach a certain age (normally 2 years old) before to start breeding.
I repeat here that Pawpeds HCM program is very important for the breed because they are neutral and they provide a listing of veterinarians that have the skill as well as the equipment and they also provide good parameters so all cats are test in similar way which is also important.
There is no shame in having a sick cat, the shame is to HIDE the disease especially if you find a pattern from a specific match.
The inbreeding COI and the diversity percentage.
“Every breed is build on a certain amount of inbreeding and line breeding to fix type”.
We hear this often and it is true regarding certain breeds (it doesn’t mean it is good). In fact, some breeds have been built from a few individuals or based in heavy inbreeding but these are the breeds we observe the most in HCM and FIP forums or databases (most diseases will be accentuated by heavy inbreeding, even infectious diseases since the immune system in heavily inbred cats is also affected negatively becoming poorer).
This old saying mentioned above, that inbreeding, linebreeding is necessary, for any reason is a rather old way of thinking coming often from breeder who did not recycle their knowledge.
With Siberians, a natural breed, it is not the same and the goal would be to try to keep the cats as close to what they used to be. We don’t want to transform significantly the looks going to extremes and we want to keep many features like temperament and the general good health our Siberians have.
Inbreeding and linebreeding are dangerous “shortcuts” if you take in consideration that cats are “solitary” animals that do not have the same immune system as dogs (for example) who are animals build to live in packs. We can obtain the same goals with selection over the years. It may be longer but way safer regarding our cats health.
With the Siberian cats we have nowadays, it is enough to pick complementary cats regarding type to correct any undesired features on type. It is longer and harder but way safer.
Breeding IS a long-term endeavour!
Here is a link with an extract from one of the classes by David William SILVERSIDES (also provided in French) about breeding strategies Please take your time to read.
The variety of bloodlines.
Unfortunately even if Pawpeds is a precious tool, the calculation of inbreeding COI is not accurate due to genetic shuffling. This is the variant that cannot be predicted making the equation inaccurate.
I still look the total COI and even more important, ancestral inbreeding in 4 first generations.
COI is a calculation of risk that is INACCURATE due to genetic shuffling while the diversity is calculated with the cat’s DNA which will allow us to take out several diseases and non desired features like B blood group.
However the observation of the COI and risk individuals in the 4 first generations is still interesting. WE know nowadays that cats with a high ancestral inbreeding particularly in these 4 first generations can produce weaker kittens regarding FIP.
It is not enough to chose severely inbred cats in your matches and then just mate with an unrelated individual to “lower inbreeding COI”. This is not good enough since all the cats in these first 4 generations will have the “word” to say in terms on expression.
A genealogy should be studied and calculated going towards, leading your lines to cats with lower inbreeding percentage on all the 4 first generations at least.
We used to say to keep it low and safe (inbreeding) talking about COI and now we say keep it high and safe (regarding diversity).
We are entering the era of precision and accuracy and MY CAT DNA will provide a full analysis of the cat’s genome and test for several genetic disorders such a PK Deficiency, metabolic diseases and provide the diversity percentage of each cat within the breed as well as best matches with a much more accurate prediction as well as colour panel, blood group.
It will also provide the genetic raw data of your cat which will be useful for the future in case new mutations are found or you want to switch labs. We will be able to provide certified parentage for our babies sold as studs and queens.
The Tica genetic board will propose a project that demands that in the future, every Tica pedigree provides certified parentage with DNA testing.
There are breeders who still use “Pre-historic” pointless methods like “individual counting” (counting Gelios, Busik) and limiting themselves to COI calculation instead of leaping towards the future with DNA testing.
However it is just a matter of time since DNA testing is the future and we will hopefully soon enough be able to count with this MUCH NEEDED accuracy in our pedigrees.
Studying your pedigree.
There are things that we can still observe in our peds. For example, we can still look for litter mates and close family members that appear on both sides of suspect cats. We can still observe the position of certain cats in the genealogy and, of course, ancestral inbreeding in four generations.
We also have to continue thinking about variety, of course! Good variety will translate into high diversity.
Try to have a variety of bloodlines to be able to make matches that are not only based on ONE blood line like only OG lines or Cica or Kranoyarsk etc Study, observe, look for VARIETY and test your cats!
About suspect cats and “rumours”.
Breeding should be based on data and we must observe all the data that can be verified on Pawpeds HCM health program for example as a first option as source for research and there is useful information there if you know how to search and if you are patient. (Check the page how to research using Pawpeds).
However talking to older breeders can be also useful because these people know a lot about the lines and therefore about the health of our foundation cats and many are very honest about it.
It is all a question of common sense: no point listening from rumours that you feel may be pure gossip but listen to people you trust and who how know more about the lines. Finally, get working and make your own research either talking with people you trust or searching databases.
Complementary cats regarding type.
Well, it is just a question of observation! Take a girl with a rounded profile if your boy has a straight profile, and vice versa. It is preferable to try this rather than using line breeding since we know nowadays that cats with higher Inbreeding = lower diversity have a weaker immune system and could be more sensitive to diseases like the Corona mutation into FIP, for example.
We can also observe the inbreeding COI on each cat in the 4 generations; the more inbred close ancestors, the more chances to obtain weaker kittens with a more fragile immune system.
There are also new foundation cats being brought in.
To work with foundation cats, you will need experience (don’t buy a Riex cat if you don’t have the experience), and you will also need several boys and girls or to work in teams. New foundation cats are a GREAT way to bring new blood in with certain conditions:
Observation and TESTING! LONG OBSERVATION and GOOD RELIABLE TESTING. It takes at least five good years of observation and TESTING to make sure the new blood brought in is good blood.
Also, always match old and new. We don’t want pedigrees with foundation everywhere IT IS NOT the SOLUTION. In case of a problem, if a cat has foundation ancestors everywhere, it would be hard to get to the root of the problem, and this could mean years of work lost and even with DNA testing since we do not have all diseases figured out.
So new can be good but must be combined with old.
Also, pay attention to foundation cats when too many are bought from the same area!
Foundation cats are basically country/street cats, and they could be severely inbred or come from paper adverts and be related to existing Siberians. In order to achieve interesting work, we should limit the number of cats brought in by area to two maximum per geographical region. Unfortunately, nowadays, we see real Siberian factories in places like Krasnoyarsk and a huge number of new cats brought in from the same area.
Please check out our guidance page on breeding with cats close to foundation.
We provide education and assistance to all our members, may they be older, newer breeders or breeders to be, and we have not one but two geneticists in the group assisting our work. If you want to know more, drop us a line!
I want to thank Lorraine Shelton for coming from Los Angeles to France just to help our group! She is one of the most talented geneticists around, the author of the update of “Roy Robinson genetics for breeders,” and a member of the Tica genetic board.
Link for Lorraine’s book at Amazon: https://www.amazon.fr/Robinsons-Genetics-Cat-Breeders-Veterinarians/dp/0750640693
2025 update: This pages were written in 2015 and My Cat DNA disappointed a bit but we have hope now to work with the laboratory Genimal and get the breeders tool back and a few new really useful features.
Daniela Barros