Our prices did not start out as they are now. Our prices started at $500 for straights and $1000 for folds. When our straight boy Jammy became the first Scottish straight in the world to be Supreme Grand Champion (the highest championship title that requires a #1 all breed final, meaning he had to beat the Persians, Maine Coons, Bengals and all the other breeds at the show) we raised our prices to $1500 for folds and $750 for straights. When we got his international best in breed and his picture went up on the TICA website for pictures for his breed and when we started having queens that were also SGC or QGC, we raised our prices again to $2000 for folds and $1000 for straights.

 

Included in our price is a slew of health testing for your cat. We do a full panel of genetic disease and traits testing on all our breeding cats, even those we’ve bred, that we have here for you to look at. We test each kitten for Felv and Fiv, not just the parents, as most breeders will. We microchip kittens and pre-register them, you just have to add your name online for free. Included in price is altering for kittens. We ultrasound all our breeding cats hearts to check for HCM since only 2 genetic forms are known at this time. We use Revolution as a flea, ear mite preventative and wormer. We do two rounds of FVRCP vaccine and a 3rd and rabies if kittens are old enough before they go home such as recovering from a spay or neuter.

 

And we publicly show our cats to prove they don’t have arthritis. Shows are a huge expense, but they document the health of our folds, provide us with a public reputation, and supports the local cat fancy. A show quality cat can make Quadruple Grand Champion in 3 shows, so if a breeder is telling you they don’t show because of x, y, and z it’s usually just a way for them to hide arthritis in their cats. There are 1-2 shows a month in the NW region and several in a year within daily driving distance from Seattle.

 

We do occasionally lower our prices for a pet quality cat and we drastically lower prices for a medical cat adoption, and arthritis is medical. For us, pet quality means pointy faces or bad ear placement on a fold or perhaps mild cow hocking (if a breeder tells you they don’t have cow hocking but don’t show, they just probably just don’t know what it is or how to pick higher quality cats to improve their stock). We usually drop prices by a few hundred for pointy faces and if we have a medical kitten, price is cut at least in half and will only go to a family with prior medical pet experience. As you can imagine, dropping a cat’s price brings all kinds of people out of the woodwork who promise to take care of a medical cat but really only see the cat’s price tag and they do not truly have the means to financially take care of medical bills. If someone can’t take care of a medical cat we’d rather keep it here forever to make sure it get the ongoing health care it needs.

 

We also lower prices if both parents are not champions. If we are just trying to replace a queen with a higher quality daughter we may not show her if she is not show quality or she hates showing. This happens often in our Brits when bringing in a new color. There are infinitely more British breeders than folds, especially reputable ones with verifiable wins, so it’s easier to bring in a Brit for a certain color and sex and spend a generation or two breeding her to conform to Scottish fold/ Scottish straight standards. Our Brits tend to throw more pet quality kittens since they aren’t as round as Scottish folds and straights and we have to bring in long hair genes.

 

And prices do go up for higher quality and more desirable colors. People do not like white as much as silvers, blues, and almost any other color. So non white cats usually start at $200 more. Shaded, chinchilla and blues are harder to get as double recessive genes are difficult unless you are breeding two parents of the same color. And Torbies are only girls with one parent red and one parent another color.

 

Litters can move very fast, especially if we have repeat adopters or adopters who missed out on specific kittens they wanted a previous litter but they did a home visit so knew they wanted to go with us. These adopters move very fast, often sending in an online deposit within 15 minutes of reservation/visit e-mails going out. We have reserved entire litters within 12 hours. Now, if the kittens are all the same ear and color, reservations can be slower, but if there’s a healthy mix of ear, color, hair length, and pet or high quality reservation tend to move faster.

 

Cost is a fair issue to discuss with breeders, but try to be open and gentle about it if you are dealing with a verifiable reputable breeder. We get tons of “how much” e-mails and “can you go lower” e-mails every litter. I post my prices to avoid this. Price is an issue and I spend dozens of hours with each family. We don’t need to waste each other’s time if cost is not agreeable to both of us. Only you can decide if upfront cost is worth an extra decade with your cat and long term medical care for a cat whose parents were not properly screened and well loved social cat.

 

I am also happy to refer your to other reputable breeders whose cost may be lower than mine.

 

See also How do you handle adopters who want a cat, but not yours?