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 used to be the most important tool we had and it still is regarding the Pawpeds HCM health program. It is the ONLY unbiased and reliable HCM health program and CAPITAL for the breed.Make research on 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 CO 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.
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 in my opinion. 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 cats.
With the Siberian cats we have nowadays it is enough to pick complementary cats regarding type to correct any undesired features on type. Like mentioned, yes it is longer and harder but way safer. Breeding IS a long-term endeavour
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.
We used to say to keep it low and safe (inbreeding) talking about COI and now we say keep it high and safe (diveristy).
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, color panel, blood group.
It will also provide the genetic raw data of your cat and this will be very useful for the future. There are mutations like HCM mutations and maybe other disorders that could even be breed specific and not to mention 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 still can observe in our peds. We can still look for litter mates that appear in each side in suspect cats for example. We still can observe the position of certain cats in the genealogy and of course ancestral inbreeding in 4 generations.
We have also to carry on thinking on VARIETY of course! Good variety will translate in a 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 Black or Kranoyarsk etc Study, observe, look for VARIETY and test your cats!
Complementary cats regarding type.
Well it is just question of observation! Take a girl with rounded profile if your boy has a straight profile and vice versa. It is preferable to try this 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 on the 4 generations, more inbred ancestors, weaker the kittens immune system may be.
There are also new foundation cats being brought in.
To work with foundation cats you will need a bit of 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 4 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 means years of work lost. So new is great but must be combined with old.
Also attention with foundation cats when there are too many bought in from the same area!
Foundation cats are basically country/street cats and they could be severely inbred or come from paper adverts and related to existing Siberians lines. In order to achieve an interesting work, we should limit the number of cats brought in by area to two maximum per geographical regions but unfortunately we see nowadays real Siberian factories in places like Kranoyarsk and an 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 them 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 would like to thank Lorraine Shelton for coming from Los Angeles to France just to help our group! She is basically one of the most talented geneticists around and the author of the update of “Roy Robinson genetics for breeders” and member of the Tica genetic board.
Link for Lorraine’s book at Amazon: https://www.amazon.fr/Robinsons-Genetics-Cat-Breeders-Veterinarians/dp/0750640693