kittens

Selling our adult breeding Servals to new homes was the hardest decision we have ever had to make. However, they are happy and healthy in their new homes.

These are some of the servals that we did have over a period of about 7 years, some of them were older when we got them. Jeffery, Benji, and Simone were raised by us from babyhood. We never were able to produce a Serval kitten for sale. It is not as easy as it would seem. However we produced several F1 kittens, Nefertiti is out of Benji, Cleo is out of Jeffery and several males were sold as pets. We kept Nefertiti and she is the Queen of our cattery. Look for her on the Savannah Queens page. she is 3 years now and has produced several litters of gorgeous kittens and is expecting in about a month we think.

Simone at 4 months
Jeffrey at 8 weeks
Ben Jumangi, Born 02/23/2003 at 8 weeks

The first Serval kitten we received was Simone. She was about 4 months and 2 days old when we received her. She took about 2 months to make the transition to us as her new owners. I very much wanted to win her over when we received her, and soon discovered that when I played with her with a feather on a string, she would forget all else and play until she was worn out. We kept her locked in the bedroom bathroom when we were not at home. The first week or so, when we would come home from work, Simone would be in the attack position hissing at us. It was clear she was saying that she was claiming our bedroom and inviting us out, as she discovered that we would not leave, I think she decided that she would share the bedroom with us, but would hiss at anyone else coming into it, and this included our 17 year old son, Jamie Joe. I have always wanted to pick her up as her previous owner did, but Simone would not let me. At first she would nip at me if I picked her up, and latter in time she would not nip but would just wiggle away and run off. I have stopped trying to pick her up because it would be apparent that she would remain angry at me for a while any time I would try. Simone can be quite affectionate. When we first introduced her to domestic cats, Simone would always walk up to them and lift her paw and put it on them waiting to see their reaction. Ocicats seem to be able to cope with meeting a Serval cat better then Bengals, but in a day or two, any domestic cat we left together with Simone seemed to be her friend. One little Ocicat female was about 1/3 the size of Simone. (Our domestic cats have claws, our Serval cats have had their claws removed.) Anytime Simone would do something this little Ocicat did not like, the little Ocicat female would walk on over to Simone, position herself, and then reach up and smack the big cat. Anytime Simone thought she might have gotten out of line, she would stand tall, and half close her eyes, knowing she might be about to be smacked. When Simone was 8 months, she moved to a 12 ft by 12 ft cage and lives with a Bengal stud, and sometimes, a couple of Bengal queens. They all seem to get along quite well.

Our next kitten was received when he was 8 weeks old. He was flown from Virgina and we received him at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. This little kitten showed no fear of us and he does allow us to pick him up. For now he is living with us and a female Ocicat kitten in our bedroom. The little Ocicat kitten and he love playing together. The little male Serval kitten is very open to us and appears to have a very good nature. This little Serval will be raised only with domestic cats and hopefully in about a year and one half to two years will breed with them.This was written previously, and this kitten grew up into Benji, a 50 lb lovable Serval stud.

If you are looking to buy a serval kitten, we advise you to verify that you don't need a permit to have this type of cat where you live. You need to check your state, county, and city as any of these may not allow this cat as a pet. African serval breeders that we feel you will not go wrong with are Sue Arnold in Florida (863-763-4630) and Pam Dombrowski in Virgina (540-672-0740). We purchased a kitten from each and have been totally delighted with their kittens.