Bengal breeding - question!

[KW.Bengals]

I am fairly new to the world of registered breeding (this is our very first litter, although we have dealt with cat pregnancy and birth previously). What I'm wondering is, when breeding your male and your female(s), do they all live together or are they separated? I ask this because currently, ours all live together and our male (approximately 10 months old) is just starting to show signs of wanting to breed (smelling the queens, trying to mount, yowling etc). He has tried for the past few days with our queen who is currently in heat and as soon as another cat (our other queens) go near them or if he sees a human, he instantly stops and won't go near her again for at least a few hours, usually more. We do have a nursing/kitten room set up so I'm wondering if it would be better to seperate them from our other queens for a few days and have them together in our nursing room (no other cats would be aloud in, there is a door that closes when nessecary). Do you think this would help? They are purebred SBT Bengals, not sure if that makes a difference in terms of breeding
Thanks in advance!! I've attached a photo of our male and one of our queens because I truly can't help but show them off we absolutely LOVE our charcoals!!

 

[di and bob]

I'll wait for the experts to come on, but he may just be a little too young and inexperienced to breed successfully.

 

[Maurey]

Letting studs live with intact queens is generally very inadvisable. Doesn’t allow you to control when your queens mate. You generally don’t want your queens mated whenever they go into heat, they often go into heat long before they can be ethically bred (cats under a year aren’t really mature enough to have kittens), same for your stud, given your breed. Your boy is too young to be used as a stud, even if he can do the deed.

Bengals need a HCM scanning done at a year old prior to being bred (cats should be retired if scan isn’t clear), then once a year every year while they’re active.

Your mentor really should be guiding you through all this. Have you spoken to any of the people who sold you your active cats for mentorship? Seems odd to me that someone reputable would sell active to a new breeder who’s not a mentee, or being mentored by a friendly breeder. Bengals aren’t an easy beginner breed, and really require guidance from someone with experience in the breed.

 

[missymotus]

Definitely not to young to work, but is too young as Maurey posted to have been HCM scanned.
Hopefully they’ve both had PRA, Pk-Def DNA tests.

As responsible breeders our males do not live with the girls, breedings are controlled.
Females are induced ovulators, they don’t need to be in heat to fall pregnant, not all cats are vocal in heat and are silent callers.

Agree there should be a mentor involved, whoever sold you cats with breeding rights should be doing this, also any friends made through showing are an excellent resource for the many situations that come up. At 2am when things go sideways you need a circle of friends to call on.

 

[StefanZ]

I agree, dont let them live together. You want to have controlled matings, if nothing else.
So, IF you want them to meet in normal family life, let him either have stud pants, making mating impossible, or do supervise them closely...
You see yourself he had already began to try mount them (he is old enough!); but breaks off when humans are present.


There ARE breeders whom do have them together. Some BYB dont care. But its a quite common phenomena, cats living together arent interested in each other sexually. Sometimes simply because the females are dominating being higher in hierarchy and rank.

In such cases the trick is to let them into an especial mating room when the time has come. So they notice its something peculiar going on, and they are probably supposed to do something extra here...

Other such breeders simply exchange stud services with collegues in breeding...

But this is a extra info for you, because your boy happily mounts the adult queens... So separate him, and let him have a neutered boy as companion (that one can be a moggie, just make sure he is willing to play and wrestle) ; letting him in just with stud pants on.

Ps: bengals are renown for spraying, so beware! Its yet another reason to let him have his own stud room (or a little cottage); and stud pants on when in home.

Our boys (russian blue studs and later on, neuters) did always lived family live with us in our home, but they were essentially non sprayers.