Bengal Breeders

If you are looking for Bengal kittens, you're sure to find a Bengal breeder in the list below. Just click on the cattery name and you'll be taken directly to the Bengal breeders website.

Also visit the Bengal Gallery of Cats and Kittens. You'll find photos of some of the most beautiful Bengals from around the world, click on the cattery name below the photo to visit the Bengal breeders website.

AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND    CANADA    GERMANY    UNITED KINGDOM

UNITED STATES

Arkansas    California    Indiana    Massachusetts    Minnesota    Missouri    New Hampshire    Wisconsin


AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND

Australia

Glenparth
Tijah

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CANADA

Ontario
Bundas



Quebec Marie Bengal

Breeding Bengal cat in Quebec, Canada from Champion bloodlines. We focus on large rosettes and wonderful type, we also ship our kittens worldwide. Please visit our website at http://www.mariebengal.com/.




GERMANY
Zewana

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SWEDEN

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UNITED KINGDOM

England

Hallmark

Breeders of quality Bengals from top US bloodlines. We are one of the first breeders in the UK to have silver Bengals. We also have beautiful brown and snow Bengals. Foundation cats to SBT. All kittens are raised and cared for in the home in a loving environment. TICA or GCCF registered. Fully vaccinated health checked and litter trained. Please visit http://www.queenannecats.co.uk, email gaynor@queenannecats.co.uk or call 0044 7714092518.


Korshki

Silverstorm

We specialize in stunning, quality Silver Bengal's chosen very carefully from the best American blood-lines, concentrating on their wild confirmation and profile, stunning leopard markings and rosettes, with extreme contrast. Please visit our website at http://www.silverstormbengals.co.uk email liz@silverstormbengals.co.uk for more information and see many photos of our beautiful Bengal cats and kittens.

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UNITED STATES

Arkansas
Wild Trax

We are a small in-home breeder of Bengal cats, Egyptian Maus and Savannahs, located in Arkansas. Top quality, super rosetted, wild and exotic looking Bengals. All of our kittens are lovingly hand raised underfoot in our home to ensure the most well adjusted, happy, healthy pet for you. Our kittens come from champion pedigrees. Written contract and health guarantee provided. Please visit our website at http://www.wildaboutbengals.com/.

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California
Bali Hai           
We are located in northern California in the beautiful foothills of the Sierra's close to Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay area. We are now breeding golden brown rosetted/spotted and also the exotic patterns of marble Bengals with champion pedigrees. All kittens are raised in our home, never in cages so are well socialized with people and dogs. Kittens sold as pets are always spayed or neutered, have 2 vaccinations and come with a health guarantees, contracts and TICA registration papers. Shipping available within the United States. Kittens available most of the time so be sure to visit our website, http://www.balihaibengals.com/, and reserve the kittens of your choice.

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Indiana
Kharistan New

Kharistan Bengals are exotically wild looking but totally domesticated. We breed F2 through SBT in brown/black spotted, silver and charcoal with rosettes and glitter. All come with a two year genetic health guarantee. Shipping is available in the U.S. only. Please visit our website at http://www.kharistan.com/.






Massachusetts
Speakeasy

Breeding for Wild Exotic Look--Friendly Loving Disposition since 1996. We are a small TICA "Outstanding Cattery" raising brown and seal lynx point rosetted kits from Regional Winner and SGC lines. All our kittens are raised underfoot, well-socialized, vaccinated, vet checked with written contract and health guarantee to approved loving homes for pet, breeding, or showing. Come take a walk on the wild side at Speakeasy Bengals, http://www.speakeasy-bengals.com/.

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Minnesota
Atouchofgold

Large rosettes, great health and return guarantees, life long customer service for your baby. I'm here 7 days a week and 365 days a year for your Bengal needs. Please stop by my website, http://www.atouchofgoldbengals.com/, and take a look at pics and all the information you may need.






Spotogold

I'm striving for large rosettes on silvers, snows, browns and even blues. I give health and return guarantees and my kitten page is always up to date with pics and prices on my website. Visit my website and take a look. Reasonable shipping rates within the USA.

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Missouri
Bengalbeauty

Home raised. From our shoulders and hearts to yours. Raised with infants, toddlers, teens and us old folks, as well as our dog. Queens and kittens have free run of our two story home. We breed for wild looks, gait, voice, and glittered coats. Championship bloodlines.





Kharistan New

Kharistan Bengals are exotically wild looking but totally domesticated. We breed F2 through SBT in brown/black spotted, silver and charcoal with rosettes and glitter. All come with a two year genetic health guarantee. Shipping is available in the U.S. only. Please visit our website at http://www.kharistan.com/.






New Hampshire
Klassik


Wisconsin
Dreamhaven

Dreamhaven is a small in-home cattery located in East Central WI breeding exotic brown and snow spotted bengals with large rosettes. TICA/ACFA affiliated. Striving for temperament first, then type, kittens have health guarantee, 1st two shots and written contract. Kittens raised underfoot 12 full weeks to learn vital social skills ensuring a happy well-adjusted kitten ready for its new home and loving owner. Please visit http://www.dreamhavenbengals.com for more information and current availability.

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The Bengal is a relatively new hybrid breed of cat, formed by the cross of a domestic feline and an Asian Leopard Cat. Bengal kittens and cats have "wild-looking" markings, such as large spots, rosettes, and a light/white belly, and a body structure reminiscent of the Asian Leopard Cat (Prionailurus bengalensis bengalensis). Bengal kittens and cats have a desirable "wild" appearance with a gentle domestic cat temperament, provided it is separated by at least three generations from the original crossing between a domestic feline and an ALC. The name Bengal cat was derived from the taxonomic name of the Asian Leopard Cat (P. b. bengalensis), and not from the unrelated Bengal tiger.

History

The earliest mention of an ALC/domestic cross was in 1889, when Harrison Weir wrote in "Our Cats and All About Them"

There is a rich-coloured brown tabby hybrid to be seen at the Zoological Society Gardens in Regent's Park, between the wild cat of Bengal and a tabby she-cat. It is handsome, but very wild. These hybrids, I am told, will breed again with tame variety, or with others.

However in 1927, Mr Boden-Kloss wrote to the magazine "Cat Gossip"regarding hybrids between wild and domestic cats in Malaya:

I have never heard of hybrids between bengalensis (the Leopard Cat) and domestic cats. One of the wild tribes of the Malay Peninsula has domesticated cats, and I have seen the woman suckling bengalensis kittens, but I do not know whether the latter survive and breed with the others!

The earliest mention of a confirmed ALC/domestic cross was in 1934 in a Belgian scientific journal, and in 1941 a Japanese cat publication printed an article about one that was kept as a pet. Jean Mill (née Sugden), the person who was later a great influence of the development of the modern Bengal breed, submitted a term paper for her genetics class at UC Davis on the subject of cross breeding cats in 1946.

The 1960s was a period when many well known breeders, including Jean Sugden, produced ALC/domestic crosses, but records indicate that none of them took it past the F2 stage. Several zoos in Europe also produced a number of F1 ALC crosses. During this period there was an epidemic of feline leukemia virus and it became known that many wild cats seemed to have a natural immunity to the disease. As a result of this, Loyola University began a research program in the 1970s to investigate if this natural immunity could be bred in or replicated.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s there was a great deal of activity with hybrids, but there was no significant effort to create an actual breed from them. A number of Cat clubs formed that oriented on hybrids and a few oriented specifically on something William Engler, a member of the Long Island Ocelot Club and a breeder, called a Bengal.

Club newsletters were published, detailing the production of Bengals and Safaris (a domestic cat/Geoffroy's Cat cross), and members of these clubs bred some second and third generation Bengals. These were registered with the American Cat Fanciers Association (ACFA) in 1977 as experimental and were shown at several ACFAcat shows throughout the 1970s.

Around this time, Jean Mill (née Sugden) began to renew her breeding efforts.

..I deliberately crossed leopard cats with domestic cats for several important reasons. At that time, wild cats were being exploited for the fur market. Nursing female leopard cats defending their nests were shot for their pelts, and the cubs were shipped off to pet stores worldwide. Unsuspecting cat lovers bought them, unaware of the danger, their unpleasant elimination habits and the unsuitability of keeping wild cats as pets. Most of the wild kittens from this era ended up in zoos or escaped onto city streets. I hoped that by putting a leopard coat on a domestic cat, the pet trade could be safely satisfied. If fashionable women could be dissuaded from wearing furs that look like friends' pets, the diminished demand would result in less poaching of wild species.

She contacted Dr. Willard Centerwall in Riverside who had produced a number of F1s using domestic tabbies at Loma Linda University for his Centerwall project into Feline Leukemia. Once the F1s had donated blood samples for his research, he needed homes for them. He gave Jean 4 hybrids. She later received another 5 hybrids from another source, but from the same Centerwall project.

Mill did not use local domestics to create her first Bengals. She felt the ALC was a genetically superior animal and wished to avoid weakening this element. Around 1982, Mill and her husband made a trip to India where a zoo curator showed them a feral Indian Mau. This is how the famous rosetted domestic called "Millwood Tory of Delhi" came to be found in virtually all Bengal pedigrees.

Greg and Elizabeth Kent were also early breeders, who developed their own line of Bengals using ALCs and Egyptian Maus. This was a very successful line and many modern Bengals will find it in their pedigree.

Jean Mill and the Kents worked hard to popularize the breed, and when the public saw the result of their work, word spread quickly. As the number of breeders and owners grew, it led to the formation of TICA's Bengal Breed Section. TICA adopted the first written breed standard in 1986 and the first Bengal Bulletin was published in Nov/Dec 1988.

Shortly after The International Bengal Cat Society (TIBCS), the Bengal Breeders Alliance (BBA) and the Authentic Bengal Cat League (ABCL) were formed. These organizations exist to promote good breeding practices, discourage unscrupulous breeders, and attempt to educate people about the Bengal breed.

Although it has become a popular breed, with over 60,000 cats registered with TICA, not all cat registries accept them - in particular the Cat Fanciers' Association, one of the largest cat registries in the world, does not accept any hybrids.

New Deveopments

The British government agency, DEFRA, has proposed revising regulations under the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976 to remove licensing requirements for keeping of Bengal cats in the United Kingdom.

There are currently several varieties of domestic cat being developed from the Bengal:

The Serengeti cat: developed from crosses with Oriental Shorthair or Siamese with the aim to produce a domestic cat mimicking the appearance of an African Serval, without actually incorporating Serval genes by hybridization.

The Savannah, which does include serval genes.

The Toyger: developed from crosses with domestic cats with the aim to produce a striped "toy Tiger".

The Cheetoh: an attempt to blend two existing domestic breeds of spotted cats with defined characteristics (Bengal and Ocicat), into a third breed.

Appearance

Bengal kittens and cats have "wild-looking" markings, such as large spots, rosettes, and a light/white belly, and a body structure reminiscent of the Leopard Cat. The Bengal's rosetted spots occur only on the back and sides, with stripes elsewhere. The breed typically also features "mascara" (horizontal striping alongside the eyes), and foreleg striping.

The Bengal kittens and cats are usually either classed as a brown-spotted or snow-spotted (although there are more colours, brown and snow are the only colours of Bengal that the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy (GCCF) recognise. Within brown Bengals, there are either marble or spotted markings. Snow Bengals are also either marble or spotted but are also divided into blue-eyed or AOC (Any Other Colour) eyes.

The International Cat Association (TICA) recognizes several Bengal colours (brown, seal lynx point, mink, sepia, silver) and patterns (spotted and marbled) for competition. In the New Traits class, other colours may be shown, as well as longhairs.

Temperament

After three generations from the original crossing, the breed usually acquires a gentle domestic cat temperament; however, for the typical pet owner, Bengal kittens and cats kept as pets should be at least four generations (F4) removed from the Leopard Cat. The so-called "foundation cats" from the first three filial generations of breeding (F1–F3) are usually reserved for breeding purposes or the specialty pet home environment.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_(cat)