About me
We already had a big pawed Maine Coon mix cat, who was 3/4 MCO and 1/4 Persian, when our younger son became very ill and was in a wheelchair for a long time. What our son responded to very well was pet therapy. So we got a small Maine Coon cat and the plan actually worked: He got better and better at moving around to play with it and the cat didn't scratch or bite him, as Maine Coons are just as good-natured as Icelandic horses. Little by little he learnt to walk again and I decided to breed these animals to help people with disabilities. It took me some time to realise that Maine Coons themselves already have considerable health problems of all kinds due to overbreeding. And so the search began for Maine Coons with as little genetic diversity as possible.
I found what I was looking for.
Why our breeding goal is a coi value below 10%:
coi stands for coefficient of inbreeding. This is the inbreeding value that can only be determined for a cat if this animal has been registered with its pedigree in a database such as pawpeds. It is higher the more inbreeding and line breeding has taken place in the cat's ancestry. Well-traceable pedigrees are immensely important tools in the fight against inbreeding. We already know this from European noble families such as the Habsburgs.
When a breed is formed, a breed standard is defined that describes the visual and/or character traits of a breed. Animals that meet this standard are registered in the studbook as foundation animals until the studbook is closed. These animals are then used for selective breeding in order to improve certain characteristics of the offspring within the breed. At the same time, this means that genetic diversity shrinks, as animals that do not show these characteristics sufficiently are not bred further. This can affect the milk yield of cows, the hunting instinct and appearance of dogs or the fastest possible growth of chickens and pigs for fattening.
With pedigree cats, it almost exclusively concerns their appearance. Because they no longer have to hunt mice.
Since only the dominant genes appear in each individual, but not the recessive genes, breeders and future pet owners have a problem: the breeder only sees what the dominant genes show on the animal's appearance (coat, eyes, jaw position...) and can at best provide a few dubious genetic tests or snapshots taken at the vet, on the basis of which the animal is declared "healthy". However, only the buyer can see what diseases the animal will get and how long it will live. If the animal ends up with another breeder, this leads to the inheritance of all predispositions, including recessive diseases. The animal does not suffer from these itself, but subsequent generations can be affected. This happens all the more easily the closer both parents are related to each other. This coincidence of identical (homozygous) genes therefore promotes diseases.
The deliberate synchronisation of more and more genes through inbreeding and line breeding is creating new disease patterns in breeding lines, which are now also being passed on.
The lack of genetic diversity results in a weak immune system, latent diseases, a lack of activity and intelligence in the animals, decreasing fertility and ever shorter life expectancy, until the breed finally dies out due to overbreeding. A horror scenario for every breeder and pet owner. But how can this lack of genetic diversity be determined in an individual animal?
The measure of the diminishing gene pool is the coi value. The coefficient of inbreeding is calculated over all generations up to the foundation (= foundation animal). This value can only ever increase in closed studbooks due to breeding.
When the wheel of inbreeding depression begins to turn, a downward spiral is set in motion from a certain coi value, which then accelerates very rapidly from one generation to the next and ends with the extinction of the breed.
This happens again and again, regardless of whether it is a farm animal or a pet, and has been systematically researched in dogs and other species since around 1900. In order to get to grips with the problem, key figures for inbreeding have been developed:
The inbreeding of the individual animal in relation to the last (usually 4 or 5) generations and
complete inbreeding, based on all known generations.
It has been discovered that the downward spiral begins to turn from a complete inbreeding (coi) of 10%. Up to a coi of 5%, the animals are still long-lived and fertile, the mortality of the offspring up to 10 days after birth is not an issue and the individuals are vital, immune stable and intelligent. Up to coi 10%, things are still going reasonably well, but above this value, problems can no longer be denied. A coi of 12.5% means that the gene pool of this individual is as homozygous, i.e. identical, as that of half-siblings!
The average coi of the Maine Coon is already over 16%. According to scientific findings, this is already clearly in a downward spiral and with a very high risk of serious health problems.
And every vet can see that.
The good news is that the Maine Coon studbook is not closed, but open! This means that unbred animals from the USA that fulfil the breed standard can be admitted for breeding. These animals are not only assessed visually, but also health-wise, as far as medically possible.
Veterinarian reports:
High inbreeding has its price! And that in two respects:
For the customer and for animal health.
One example of this is huge growth:
The original MCO was nowhere near as large and heavy as what we are often offered today: The average weight of the cats was 4 kg and that of the males 6 kg. There have always been natural fluctuations, both upwards and downwards. When animals are bred for size, a whole range of adverse health effects occur. Patellar tendons tear more often because the joints can no longer absorb the weight of the cat when it jumps from a height of 2 metres. Hip operations on degenerated joints are also not uncommon. The animals suffer from joint inflammation early on and, above all, unnoticed, preferring to spend the day with as little movement as possible. If the atritis is noticed, the animal is given long-term medication until it often has to be euthanised far too early. A vet in Berlin told me about another breeding defect in connection with animal size: Maine Coons bred for size with intestinal obstruction in rows, which cannot really be helped because they suffer from congenital intestinal inertia. An operation on the intestinal obstruction does not solve the problem, it comes back and the animal dies anyway. Initially, these and other diseases occur quite locally. If animals are spread through breeding, their genetic defects migrate with the animals to more distant areas, causing ever greater damage to the gene pool.
It should be noted that all these animals are healthy according to their genetic tests and other examinations at the time of sale and are also sold as "healthy".
In my very personal opinion, breeding MCOs for giant growth is clearly torture breeding!