Fourteen Years with Maine Coons

I've been raising Maine Coons for fourteen years. In 2009, I took in my first one from a friend—a brown tabby male. He was moving to Shenzhen at the time, and his new apartment didn't allow pets. The cat was named Da Zhuang, eight months old, already weighing over five kilograms.

I remember the first time I saw Da Zhuang, I had no idea what a Maine Coon was. I only knew this was a very large cat, with tufts of fur on his ears and a long, fluffy tail. My friend told me it was a Maine Coon, an American breed. At the time, I actually thought they came from Myanmar.

Back in those days, very few people in China raised Maine Coons. I was in Beijing, and in 2009, you probably couldn't find more than twenty purebred Maine Coons in the entire city. Pet shops only sold Persians, British Shorthairs, and American Shorthairs. The occasional Ragdoll was already considered rare. When I took Da Zhuang to get his vaccinations, even the veterinarian hadn't seen this breed before and asked if he was a Norwegian Forest Cat.

Da Zhuang lived until 2021, reaching twelve years old. He passed from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Over these fourteen years, I've raised seven Maine Coons in total. Some were purchased from domestic catteries, some imported from Russia, and some were kittens gifted by friends. In 2015, I started breeding myself, registering a very small cattery. I only produced one or two litters a year, mainly for my own enjoyment, never expecting to make money. And indeed, I never did make money—factoring in cat food, vaccines, genetic testing, and stud fees, I lost money every year.

The Changing Market

From around 2009 to 2013, Maine Coons were a niche breed in China. Buying a kitten with pedigree papers cost roughly between 8,000 and 15,000 yuan, depending on quality and bloodline. Back then, people who kept Maine Coons were basically all genuine enthusiasts. The circle was small, and everyone knew each other.

Things changed starting in 2014. After short video platforms took off, Maine Coons became viral for a while because of their large size. I remember several Maine Coon accounts whose followers grew rapidly. In the videos, cats standing up could reach a person's waist, and the comments were all asking "where can I buy one?"

That's when prices started climbing. By 2016, cats of the same quality cost more than double. 2018 was the craziest period—an ordinary pet-quality kitten cost thirty to forty thousand yuan, and a breeding-quality female could sell for over a hundred thousand. For so-called "champion bloodline" imports from Russia, some people were asking prices upward of two hundred thousand.

I don't know what those people who spent two hundred thousand on a cat were thinking.

The Problems That Emerged

After the market heated up, problems followed. Backyard catteries started appearing in large numbers. What's a backyard cattery? It's one with no qualifications, no genetic disease testing, just breeding and selling kittens for money. They'd buy one male and one female from a legitimate cattery, go home and start breeding, producing four or five litters a year, selling kittens at two months old at half the price of legitimate catteries.

Many people who bought backyard cats came to regret it later. Maine Coons have several genetic diseases, the most common being HCM (Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy) and SMA (Spinal Muscular Atrophy). Legitimate catteries do genetic testing on their breeding cats to ensure disease-causing genes aren't passed to offspring. Backyard catteries don't do any of this—they probably don't even know these tests exist.

I've seen too many cases. Someone spent twenty thousand on a Maine Coon, raised it to two years old, then it suddenly died. At the hospital, it was found to be HCM. Someone else's cat started showing weakness in its hind legs at six months, couldn't stand steadily, and was diagnosed with SMA. There's no cure for this disease—you can only watch the cat slowly become paralyzed.

In 2019, I wrote an article and posted it on a pet forum, explaining how to distinguish legitimate catteries from backyard ones. The readership wasn't high, just a few hundred views. In the comments, someone attacked me, saying I was trying to suppress competitors and deliberately smearing people who sold cats cheaply.

I didn't know how to respond to comments like that. I only produce one or two litters a year—there's no competitive relationship to speak of. I just felt that people wanting to buy Maine Coons should know this information.

The Market Correction

After the 2020 pandemic, Maine Coon prices started falling. Many people were stuck at home and impulsively bought cats, then later found they couldn't keep them and had to rehome. Posts selling secondhand Maine Coons suddenly multiplied. By 2022, pet-quality kittens were basically back to the fifteen to twenty thousand yuan range, which was somewhat normal.

I currently have three Maine Coons at home. One is an older cat I took in from a friend after Da Zhuang passed—he's already nine years old this year. The other two are ones I bred myself and kept rather than selling. The cattery stopped in 2022, no more breeding. There were many reasons, mainly lack of energy. My day job got busier and busier, and I couldn't guarantee that each litter of kittens would receive enough care.

Advice for Prospective Owners

Sometimes people ask me where they should buy a Maine Coon if they want one now. I usually give them a few suggestions:

I'm not sure how many people are still seriously breeding Maine Coons now. Several cattery owners I know have gradually exited in recent years. The market is hard to work in, knowledgeable buyers are too few, and most people only look at price. Legitimate catteries can't reduce their costs, so they can't compete with backyard operations.

Last year, a netizen messaged me privately saying he wanted to start a Maine Coon cattery and asked if I had any advice. I told him, if you're trying to make money, don't do this—opening a bubble tea shop would be better. If you genuinely love Maine Coons and can accept losing money every year, then you can try, but be mentally prepared. This path is very hard to walk.

He never replied. I don't know if he ever opened his cattery.

Looking Back

I'm forty-two years old this year. Based on Maine Coon lifespans, the three I have now can probably keep me company for about ten more years. After ten years, I probably won't raise cats anymore. It's not that I don't like them—I just feel that as I get older, I may not be able to take care of them for their entire lives.

These years raising Maine Coons, I've spent quite a bit of money, and even more time. Whether it was worth it, I can't say. The night Da Zhuang passed, I sat alone in the living room for a long time, and still had to go to work normally the next day. This kind of thing can't be explained to people who don't have cats—even if you told them, they wouldn't understand.

These are some experiences and thoughts from my fourteen years raising Maine Coons. Writing them down doesn't have any particular purpose—I just wanted to write.