George makes Champion - see Show News page.
Welcome to our website and we hope you enjoy looking through it. Our names are Wayne & Alison. We are based near Cromer, in beautiful North Norfolk, where we live with our two boys & our Bengals.
Lets start with a little about Bengal cats and their beginnings. Bengal cats are the descendants of a cross between the Asian Leopard Cat and a domestic cat, originally Egyptian Maus, Abyssians or Ocicats. A first generation cross is called an F1. An F2 is the progeny of one F1 parent and one domestic parent (usually a Bengal these days), and an F3 has one F2 parent and one domestic parent. F1 males are usually sterile, and F2 and F3 males also often have fertility problems. The early stages of breeding programmes are therefore usually carried by crossing female Asian Leopard Cat hybrids with male domestic cats.
The fourth generation removed from the wild and beyond can be considered a domestic animal, and is officially a Bengal, rather than a Leopard Cat hybrid. Given that the breeding programme will have been explicitly aimed at producing good pets, the resulting Bengals should display the beautiful markings and unusual behaviour of the wild cats, whilst inheriting the domestic cat’s social nature and adaptability to human lifestyles.
There is some debate as to whether the ‘F’ hybrid cats are suitable for pets. As they move a couple of generations away from the wild, certain individual hybrid cats with social natures and good ‘upbringings’ certainly make good, if highly specialised pets. Even those which are ‘pet-worthy’ however, are only really suitable for very experienced pet keepers, able to understand and cater for the needs of what is essentially a semi-wild animal, and are by no means appropriate pets for the average family!
Fortunately, the Bengal cat itself, is very suitable as a family pet.
And now a little about Weepingwillows and our beginnings.
We never really considered ourselves to be cat people but in 2005 Alison watched a programme about cat shows in the USA. She saw the Bengal’s and was completely bowled over by their stunning good looks, markings and coats and just had to have one as a pet. We went to see some kittens that were near to where we lived, they were Siamese cross Snow Spotted Bengal’s. We went to have a look at the mother to see a Bengal properly.
We searched the internet, made an astronomical amount of phone calls (thanks to everyone who gave us their time and advice) and found our first brown spotted girl, Nala from Lauren at Bengad Bengals. Nala really is a beautiful cat with a very impressive pedigree. Nala has now retired as a breeding queen and is living the life of Riley as a much loved pet. Our search for a boy was also completed by our visit to Lauren as she had the most adorable little Silver spotted boy available as well, one look at him and a quick look at his pedigree and we had to get Lauren to let us be adopted by this handsome little chap. Magnum is already doing well in the show ring and getting good results. In April 2007 Magnum gained his TICA Championship title.
We decided that it would be lovely to have another little girl so we went to visit Frances at Solargem Bengals who had a beautiful four week old little marble girl, she had the most gorgeous little face and striking markings already. Of course, we reserved her there and then, Tilly was a fantastic example of a marble and with her pedigree we were very excited about breeding her. Unfortunately, Tilly didnt work out as a breeding queen for us, so Frances has kindly let us be owned by another of her girls, a Snow Spotted. We are really looking forward to seeing her babies.
We still do not really consider our selves to be cat people, but we are Bengal people. Anyone who has been owned by one or more of these gorgeous animals knows that they are not your average cat, they really are something very special and we feel honoured and very lucky to be sharing our lives with these endearing, characteristic, brave, acrobatic and beautiful creatures.
We are members of the Bengal Cat Club and The Bengal Cat Club of Great Britain
We are a small hobby cattery, and although we breed our cats for our own pleasure, we do occasionally have kittens available for adoption.
You can contact Wayne or Alison by e-mail or by telephone on
01692 500201 / 07900218802.
bravenet.com