Maine Coon foundation cattery Loonycoons

Who are we?

LoonyCoons:
a small german/american
foundation cattery
located in Berlin.

Foundations?

Cats coming from
fresh bloodlines
bred from wildstock Maine Coons.

What is polydactyl?

The exceptional trait of many feral "Coon Cats".

The roots of Loonycoons:

Please meet:
Flaming Franny of LoonyCoons
our true Coon Cat.

This is the news!

Currently at LC´s

Here you find the stud and queens.

In retirement...

...but not forgotten, our friends of the past.

The rascels

All our kittens and litters listed with pics (please be patient while loading).

Pooh and Alwin

... should not be left out.

Picture Gallery

The funniest snapshots from the generations of Loonycoons.


		A few thoughts about the original Maine Coon and Foundation Catteries The original Maine Coon comes in many colors, differing size and type and with very friendly, smart and lovable character. Many wild Coons in Maine also bear another unique feature, the polydactylism called snowshoes or mitten paws. These cats have, originally out of a spontanious mutation in one litter many years, if not centuries ago, developed extra toes. From our experiance the original Maine Coon is more lively and communicating and less moody than show line cats. "Foundation" is the term for a cat which comes from new, if not brandnew lines, developed from so called "wildstock" cats (that are wild Maine Coons without pedigree). The monitored, "bred" generations after the wildstock are titled with F1-F?. Breeding with wildstock and foundation cats is a little bit difficult and contains a lot of responsibility on the breeders side because these cats must slowly be brought to match the Maine Coon Standard. Why that - you are asking: should not a Maine Coon look like a Maine Coon look like a Maine Coon? Well, it´s not quite so, because the cats out of common show lines have over the years changed their look to bigger ears, bigger muzzles, bigger size, different fur quality and so on. Naturally, the standards for the race have been adjusted on and on. So what´s the problem, just breed the cats to match the standard? Yes, but not by making the same mistakes again, that have been made with the breeding all along. The usual breeding methods, incest and excessive linebreeding, which are by themselfs the reason for the neccessity of foundation cats can not be used. Our most importent method in breeding is SELECTION. That means I can not take ANY kitten out of one of my litters to breed on with. Usually there is only one, sometimes none at all that will be fit to be a parent of a new generation. To select a new kitten for breeding we can not only consider it´s type, but must also include the personality, fur quality, size and health. And even then, after careful selection it can still happen, that the handsome, friendly baby boy grows up to be a not so typeful, grumpy, spraying moodman, which leads to "early retirement" because such traits are not desirable for breeding cats.
		Why Foundation anyways? If you have viewed other Maine Coon pages you may have noticed that some catteries promote show successes, top champion lines and champion titles. You will not find these on our page. No misunderstandings, some of our cats have titles too, but in general a title does not tell anything about the quality, health or personality of the cat. (I will explain this really quick for catlovers unexperienced with breeding and cat shows. Basically, you can take any cat to a catshow. At the show the judges, one or -depending on the association/club that runs the show -several, judge the cats by looking on the obvious features of the cat compared to the standard. Usually then the cat gets a certain amount of points, and, naturally the cat with the most points will win for the title. Depending on the breeders association a cat will need to win 1-6 times to be given the champion title. The thing is though, that any cat can be shown at any show. That means, even a cat that fits the standards just barely can become champion if you take him/her to enough shows. The biggest croux though is that neither the cats personality nor the status of it´s health and genetic code can be judged like that. And that´s exactly the problem: no title can make up for a moody, unfriendly or even unhealthy cat.) Back to the subject, WHY FOUNDATION? The problem with every breed, be it dogs, cats, cows or whatever, is that the gene pool of the race becomes smaller and smaller the longer the race is being bred within itself. In nature, the cats would couple with this or that non related cat here and there. In race breeding, to result in ever more typefull, bigger, animals of whatever kind, breeders tend to breed for the perfect animal (at least perfect from what you see from the outside) using incest and linebreeding (father - daughter, mother - son, brother - sister, grandma - grandson and so forth and so on) usually underestimating or even accepting the damage done to the race by these methods. The Maine Coon, promoted as the "gentle giants", the healty, durable race, has in a matter of 30 years of breeding lost a lot of this said to be health and friendliness. With breeding for ever bigger cats of ever more extreme type came heart diseases (for example HCM, hypertroph cardio myopathy) sceletal defects (HD, hip dysplasia) and other genetic defects as well as bad personalities, that slowly become ever more dominant within some bloodlines and affect by now - dare I assume - hundreds if not thousands of outwardly healthy looking animals. I am far from judging any breeder, the problem is not only one in cat breeding, but as I´ve mentioned above in all breeding races where titles of studs/parents determine the price of the offspring. SO WHY FOUNDATION? THATS WHY! To bring fresh blood into the race, to thin out the defects that are already there and prevent from any new ones. To bring back the original traits and features to the race and to make sure that the breed will last. The Maine Coon and all other races and animals deserve that much.