In twenty-odd years of breeding and showing Siamese and Oriental cats, and rather more years as a GCCF Full Judge handling other people’s cats and their paperwork, I have learned one thing above almost all others: the breeders who last are the ones who keep good records. Not the ones with the prettiest cats, not the ones with the biggest cattery — the ones who can tell you, in thirty seconds, what they paired, why, what the litter weighed at day three, and which kitten went to which home. Good records are the quiet backbone of a serious breeding programme. Here is what you should be keeping, and why it matters more with every litter.
Your cats and their registrations
The foundation of everything is a complete record of every cat you own, have bred, or have placed. For each one you want the registered name and prefix, registration number, EMS code, date of birth, sex, neuter status, and which register class it sits on. It sounds obvious, yet I regularly meet breeders who cannot lay hands on a cat’s registration number without rummaging through a drawer. When a buyer asks a question, when you need to register a litter, or when you are entering a show, that information needs to be at your fingertips — not on a certificate that has gone walkabout.
Pedigrees — yours and theirs
Every breeding cat in your programme should have a full pedigree on record, ideally four or five generations deep. You need these for two reasons. First, you cannot make sensible pairing decisions without knowing what sits behind each cat — the ancestors, the titled lines, the colours carried. Second, every kitten you sell deserves a correct pedigree to take to its new home. A pedigree is not a marketing flourish; it is the document that lets the next owner show, breed, or simply understand the cat they have bought. Keeping pedigrees scattered across emails and photocopies is how mistakes creep in, and a mistake on a pedigree can follow a bloodline for years.
Matings and trial matings
Record every mating: which queen, which stud, the dates she visited, the stud terms agreed, and whether she conceived. Over time this becomes one of your most valuable assets, because it tells you which pairings worked and which did not. Just as important are the matings you plan but have not yet carried out. A serious breeder thinks several litters ahead, and being able to model a pairing — checking how closely related the two cats are before they ever meet — saves you from repeating other people’s mistakes. Keeping a clear history of intended and actual matings turns guesswork into a programme.
Litters, weights and early development
When a litter arrives, the record-keeping steps up. You want the litter date, the number born, sexes and colours, and any losses — recorded honestly, because patterns in losses tell you things you need to know. Daily weights in the first fortnight are one of the most useful welfare tools a breeder has: a kitten that is not gaining is a kitten in trouble, and a written weight chart will show you a problem a day before your eye does. Note worming dates, weaning progress, and any vet visits. This is the information a conscientious buyer will ask about, and being able to produce it marks you out as someone who takes the job seriously.
Health tests and vaccinations
Depending on your breed, you will be carrying out health screening — PKD ultrasound, HCM scanning, PRA and PK-Deficiency DNA tests, FeLV and FIV status, and so on. Every result needs to be recorded against the cat it belongs to, with dates, because results expire and scans need repeating. The same goes for vaccinations and boosters across your whole cattery. When you are running more than a couple of cats, keeping vaccination dates in your head is simply not safe; something will lapse, and it will lapse at the worst possible moment, such as the week before a stud visit. A single place that shows you, at a glance, who is due for what is worth its weight in gold.
Buyers, contracts and after-care
The relationship does not end when the kitten leaves. Keep a record of who bought which kitten, their contact details, the contract terms, and any conditions — neutering agreements, breeding endorsements, the lot. Good after-sales records let you follow a kitten’s progress, answer the new owner’s questions years later, and, if you ever need to, prove what was agreed. They also mean that if a health issue emerges in a line, you can contact the relevant owners responsibly. This is the part new breeders most often neglect, and the part that, done well, builds the reputation that fills your waiting list.
Why paper and spreadsheets fail as you grow
A notebook is fine for your first litter. By your third, it is creaking. The trouble with paper and loose spreadsheets is that the information does not connect. Your pedigree file does not know about your weight chart; your vaccination list does not know which queen is due to call; your buyer spreadsheet does not link back to the litter. So you end up entering the same cat’s details over and over, and every time you do, you introduce the chance of an error. Spreadsheets also cannot do the clever work for you — they will not calculate a coefficient of inbreeding, they will not render a correct pedigree, and they will not warn you that a pairing is closer than you intended. As the cattery grows, the admin grows faster than the cattery does, and that is when good breeders start cutting corners simply to keep up.
- Data lives in several places, so nothing is ever quite complete.
- The same details get typed repeatedly, multiplying the chance of mistakes.
- Nothing calculates COI, diversity or correct EMS codes for you.
- Files are tied to one computer, with no real backup if it fails.
Keeping it all in one place
This is exactly why I built Perfect Pedigrees. It is a browser-based system designed to hold your whole cattery in one connected place — your cats and their registrations, full pedigrees, every mating and trial mating, litters and weights, health tests and vaccinations, and your buyers and contracts. Because it is one system rather than a stack of files, entering a cat once means it appears everywhere it should. It builds GCCF- and TICA-correct pedigrees, works out coefficient of inbreeding and genetic-diversity figures for you, and lets you run a trial mating before the cats ever meet. You can enter cats by typing, or simply upload a photo or PDF of an existing pedigree and let the system read it — no retyping a paper pile. It is free to build, and you only pay when you choose to print a certificate. In other words, it is the system you keep your whole cattery in, not just another file to maintain.
Bring your whole cattery into one place. See exactly how the system holds your cats, matings, litters and certificates on the how it works page, then join the founding members and start building for free — pay only when you print.
Written by Ross Davies — GCCF Full Judge, breeder and exhibitor of 20+ years, and a qualified feline behaviourist. Perfect Pedigrees is a breeder’s record-keeping and pedigree tool, not a registering body.
