We had not originally intended on showing these boys; we had just bought them to be our pets. But once the idea was planted in our minds, we thought why not go ahead and try it. Enough said, we were hooked after our very first show! We had stayed in contact and become friends with both the boys’ breeders. We attended the same shows they did while trying to learn the ins and outs of showing. Showing the boys was a constant learning experience and the perfect way to learn more about the Maine Coon, their standard, point systems, and what "look" we liked.  There is so much to learn! After showing for a year we began talking about starting a breeding program of our own. Ripley's breeder became a mentor to us, explaining what was involved in breeding, and answering our never-ending questions. At the end of June 1998, he offered us Lexie, a brown mackerel female to be our first breeding female. In February 1999, Chynna, a brown patched tabby/white female arrived from Coonyham Cattery in CA and in March 1999, we were given the opportunity to get Willow, a brown classic female from Velvet Jewels Cattery in WI. We had three unrelated girls and decided to look into having our own stud. So in August 1999, our first stud, Dyllan, arrived from Pawstuctaway cattery in NH. While waiting for Dyllan to grow up we sent two of our girls to my parent’s house to be bred to their blue classic stud, D’Artagnan. From Willow’s first litter we kept Kaylee and from Chynna’s we kept Jasmina. Then we sent Lexie to our mentor’s red classic/high white stud, Cedar. From that litter we kept Nanook and Emmie who all became the start of our program. :-)

Our main goals for our breeding program are to produce healthy, typey, well-adjusted cats with sweet temperaments and personalities. Socialization is very important to us. We spend a lot of time with our babies so they will be outgoing, playful, sweet, and used to being around people and other cats.

We are a FeLV/FIV negative cattery. We will sell our kittens to approved homes only!  They come with a health guarantee and a sales contract, including a spay/neuter agreement, which also states that our kittens are not to be declawed or allowed outdoors.  See our kitten page for more details.

HCM can happen in any cat, purebred or domestic.  Therefore, we have chosen to screen our breeding cats for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) and have only cats producing kittens that are clear of any signs of HCM at the time of testing. The ultrasounds are done by Dr. Hattie Bortnowski, DVM, Diplomate ACVIM (Internal Medicine) from the University or Wisconsin.

* Please note: Screening for HCM is currently the recommended method to aid in reducing the incidence of this genetic condition in our cats. Breeders cannot guarantee that their cats will not have this condition. However, Coonwyck can guarantee that we are dedicated to screening our breeding cats in a continued effort to produce healthy and sound Maine Coon cats to the best of our ability.

* We feed our cats Felidae (dry), Wellness (canned) and are currently researching and considering well-balanced raw meat diet..

We producing brown, blue, red, cream, silver, red-silver (cameo) tabbies, brown torbie (patch tabby), blue torbie and silver torbies in both the classic and mackerel patterns.  On occasion we also have the possibility of solid black, solid blue, black or blue tortoiseshell, black or blue smoke, and smoke tortoiseshell, all with or without white.

We would like to thank Lynn Hofstetter of Irishcoons for our big, sweet, lovable lump, Reiley, for our beautiful Shea, she is a doll,  and especially your friendship! ;-)

We would like to thank Donna Borges of Purrrgatory cattery for our sweet, fearless, feisty baby girl, Torie.  She is a wonderful addition for us! ;-)

We would like to thank Sanne & Per Larsen of Sebascos cattery in Denmark for our gorgeous and sweet Apollo!  He is a special baby boy and we are thrilled to have him as part of our family! ;-)

We would like to thank Kathy Hansen of Kittikop cattery for our gorgeous and darling Rita, we are so happy to have our little granddaughter here with us!  ;-)

We would like to thank my parents, Pam & Tom Klemm, of Mellokat for our handsome boy, Monte.  He's a very special boy and we love him bunches! ;-)