Etiquette for Breeders and Buyers:

 

Etiquette for Breeders and Buyers:

I have a few things to say regarding reserving a Persian Kitten from a breeder and my perspective about buying my Persians when I first started out. So I will start with the latter first.

As a buyer what you should expect from a breeder, is a knowledgeable professional pleasant experience. When I first started buying my breeding Persians I decided to buy them as kittens, I wanted to make sure that I personally had a hand in the personalities of my future Parents of the Persian kittens I would be selling, as kittens tend to get their personalities from their parents and also how well the breeder socializes them.

When I started looking for my future breeding Persians, I contacted several well known breeders, all got back to me in a timely manner. Some even said if I ever needed help or had any questions to email them. Well, I had some questions and emailed the closest breeder to me who also is still in business to this day, as this breeder said I could ask their advice. Well needless to say this breeder never returned an email after she got my money. Incredibly rude? You bet,

I won't mention names. I bought many kittens from this breeder and while they are all beautiful, I felt this breeder is only in it for the money.

Moving on, I also bought several Persians from an out of state breeder and found her kittens to be the most loving, social and super affectionate. I emailed her to tell her my opinion and she thanked me and said she spends a lot of time with her babies, this was obvious in the way that her kittens acted and I thought to myself these are the type of Persian kittens I wanted to raise. Any time I had a question she replied and was very helpful with many questions I had. I also bought many books on breeding as an avid reader this worked out well for me, I learned a lot and made a decision I would raise the bar when it came to how I treated my buyers. Many of the kittens I bought were shipped and back then I did not know you could have a personal shipper sit on the plane and deliver the kitten to you at the airport. At first I started my cattery I began breeding slowly, building it up and mainly sold only locally. In the last 2 yrs. I decided to spread my wings and go full steam ahead. My main concern was I did not want my Persian kittens shipped in a crate because they would be scared and alone. I came across a website that offers shipping for animals and just about anything else you can imagine. My shipper Louann is quite remarkable. I have always gotten along well with New Yorkers and she is based out of NY. She contacted me after I placed an ad and as typical for most New Yorker's she talks fast, gets to the point and followed through with her promises and I personally found her to exceed my expectations. I will only use her and her husband for transporting my Persians out of state.

Ok, so when my new kittens were shipped to me I noticed they were all scared and in a crate with just the bare essentials, I felt badly for them and decided I would never put my kittens through that. I also decided I would send my Persians to their new homes with an array of toys and other gifts all put together in a nice bag with a personal thank you note written to my buyers, this shows thoughtfulness, care and gratitude to the customers as well as concern for the kittens I sold, something I never got when I bought my Persians.

I also decided I would never mislead or lie to my customers and always give them an honest opinion about a particular Persian kitten they were interested in. If I felt a kitten was not going to mesh ( personality wise ) with them, I would tell them so. I also decided I would not join the fad and make up stupid names for my Persians like Teacup, Rug Hugger, Micro Mini etc.

Do I lose sales because of this? Nope, and if someone doesn't want to buy a Persian kitten from me because I refuse to breed runt to runt which is after all what produces the so called Teacup Persian, well then I do not want these people as buyers any ways. Some people are misinformed about Teacup Persians and that I can understand, while others just want a tiny little kitten ( which btw does not exist and never will ) and these are the people I do not care to ever sell to. I look at it like this, if you knowingly after talking to me or even reading up information about the so called Teacup Persian trust me the info is all over the Internet about how these Persians do not exist.

You can even call the CFA and they will tell you the same thing. You can go to their website and contact them at www.cfa.org look under breeds of Persians, if you do not see TEACUP or any other made up name breeders use to lure you into buying one of their Persians for an outrageous price, then it does not exist,

If someone is hell bent on buying a runt that was bred from two runt parents, then these are the people I wish to avoid selling to. By buying from a breeder who advertises Teacup Persian kittens is promoting unscrupulous breeders who are charging outrageous amounts of money, this tells me the intelligence level and character of these buyers and breeders and that is definitely not the negative energy I want in my life. Other buyers like I stated are just misinformed. By placing my website under Teacup Persians in the keyword search I hope that the information on my website www.kismetkittens.org educates my buyers and maybe helps to change their opinion about wanting a Teacup Persian because truly they are paying more for a kitten bred to be very small and trust me these kittens have health issues inherited from their parents and they do not thrive and definitely do not live a normal life span of a healthy normal Persian kitten. The major difference with the Ex Small Persian Kittens we sell is that both parents are normal size for their breed of Persian. The average weight of one of our Persians fully grown can weight up to 12 lbs.for a male which in itself is small for a cat, the smallest is 5 to 6 lbs generally females weigh less. So here is what you need to ask the breeder before you buy: 1) What is the average weight of your Persians fully grown 2) Do you in-breed ( many catteries will inbreed to produce the perfect Persian kitten not only is this unhealthy it is illegal in Europe ). 3) What type of food and vitamins do you feed your Persian kittens, breeders that truly care about their animals will feed them a good food rich in protein and have them on vitamins as well.

We use Blue Buffalo Wilderness Dry and while they are babies and just starting to eat we mix it with Fancy Feast Wet we also use a variety of vitamins and supplements to help our babies thrive and stay healthy some of the brands we use are Life Abundance, NuVet Plus, Nutri Cal, Collate, and a variety of Holistic products. 4) What is the life span of the Persian kittens you sell, keep in mind when you buy a kitten it becomes your responsibility to care for the well being of the Persian kitten and by keeping them up to date on vaccines and feeding your Persian a premium food, not allowing it outdoors as well as altering the Persian all helps to extend the life span of the pet. 5) Is your cattery PKD negative many breeders will offer to do PKD testing on a kitten for an interested buyer as long as that buyer is willing to pay for the test and wait for results. All our breeding Persians are PKD negative which produces PKD negative kittens.

Now let's discuss etiquette of buying from a breeder, there are things you should never say to a breeder because they will just block you and mark you as someone not to sell to. I get emails all the time from what I refer to a time wasters one person who still emails me and her email ends up in my spam folder because here is what her email says: " Do you have any kittens available? Get back to me ASAP". I typically will not respond to these type of emails simply because these kind of people are not serious buyers. Also telling a breeder who's normal price range for a kitten is way over what you can afford is also guaranteed to get you on the Do Not Respond List. I have had people who have actually been on my website and then proceed to email me to complain about my prices and to tell me they have a $400.00 budget. Incredibly rude and truly shows lack of class. It is hard work breeding Persians and it also cost us a lot of money in order to provide our buyers with a healthy, well socialized kitten, we are not in the breeding business to give our Persians away. Even the SPCA charges money for their cats. Nor are we over priced the most one of our exquisite Persian kittens can go for is $2,500.00 I have seen other breeders selling these same Persians for $4,500.00 and up. We are not greedy nor do we try to scam our buyers by making up slang names for our Persians, we show our customers the same respect we would want if the shoes were reversed. Another way to ensure a breeder will not sell to you is to ask for tons of pictures and videos of all the kittens they have currently for sale. This says to the breeder that you are either not serious or confused about what you are looking for. A serious buyer will pick up the phone to discuss what their needs and lifestyle are and a breeder can be vital in helping you to choose the Persian that is right for you.