What a weekend...

Our weekend pretty much began on Thursday when Hulda (Acousticat's FridayImInLove) gave us a grand surprise and gave birth to five kittens! We thought that she was not even pregnant as there was no outward signs (no pink nipples, no boobs, nothing...). Only thing we seen from her was her gaining some weight but that we put on her very good appetite and the never empty bowls of kitten chow. She did not even make a nest, but at early morning just went under a blanket on the bed and gave birth for the first two kittens.
In total there were five kittens, but unfortunately the last siamese/balinese was not viable for living as her chest cavity was open (deformation during development).
In the end we had four lively little kittens (OLH f 03, OLH d ?, OSH d 03 24 and SIA/BAL n).

On Friday son of Forcas Via Nocturna, moved to live with us. He is the same age as Hulda's babies and his mother wasn't too interested of nursing him after c-section, so the kitten count went back to five.

On Saturday we headed up to a cat show here in Warsaw. What a nice day to meet old and new friends. We also met daughter of Blackrock (Berta Egregius - OSH q 25) who was attending her first show and gained EX 1.
The rest of the results are as follows:

NW15 SC Blackrock Via Nocturna, JW (OSH n 03 25) PH, NOM
NW15 Lilith, DSM (HCS n 09) 1, NOM, BIS
IP Forneus Via Nocturna (OSH c 24) EX 1, CAGPIB, NOM
Jailhouse Rock Via Nocturna (OSH a 03), EX 1, CAC, NOM, BIS

Congratulations for owner of Elwis (Jailhouse Rock) and owner of Julek (Forneus) for great results!

Sunday morning began quite surprising. We were not expecting Anneli (Gehennas Via Nocturna - SIA g) to give birth yet for a week, but looks like the ultrasound was wrong and she began labor just before we were supposed to leave for the show. So I did stay behind at home to be the midwife and by 11am we were done having four kittens in the nest. One OSH f and three siamese babies.
Anneli did excellent job for her first ever litter and now we'll wait to see how the kittens are going to develop.

At the show the following results were gained:
NW15 SC Blackrock Via Nocturna, JW (OSH n 03 25) PH, NOM
NW15 Lilith, DSM (HCS n 09) 1, NOM, BIS
IP Forneus Via Nocturna (OSH c 24) EX 1, CAGPIB, NOM, BIS
Jailhouse Rock Via Nocturna (OSH a 03), EX 1, CAC, NOM
Itzpapalotl Via Nocturna (OSH c 22), EX 1, CAC

Again, huge congratulations for the owners of Elwis and Julek. It is so nice that you are bringing the boys to the shows :)
Unfortunately Blackrock did not attend to the BIS-ring. During the rewarding of Best Breeder (ps. Via Nocturna was the best breeder for category 4) he freaked out with so much people and rewards being pretty much pushed to his face, so he jumped on top of Marcins head (yes, there was a lot of blood) and ran under the foldable chairs at the wall. After the show Marcin managed to get him out and our poor boy was so stressed. Now he is going to stay for a while at home to be a daddy for our O-litter (from Gehennas).

Statistics from Polish Cat Shows - Chapter #6

The average cat show in Poland for year 2017 (up to end of April) would look like below.

The BIS results would be as follows:

Based on the average during a show weekend one cat would be disqualified.

9 cats would be absent from a show day. From category 1 it would most likely be a ragdoll, from category 2 it would be maine coon, from category 3 a british shorthair and from category 4 a devon rex.

During a show 22 BIVs would be given and 38 cats would be nominated for Best In Show (incl. veterans, litters and housecats).

If you receive BIV you have 22% possibility of gaining Best In Show.

Statistics from Polish Cat Shows - Chapter #5

And now lets move on to Category 4 show entries and results. If you missed the previous categories, please take a look here.

As said in the earlier chapters, the data for year 2017 is up to end of April and includes the shows held in Poland before that time.

487 entries in total, and they fall per breed as follows:

The most popular breeds were Sphinx, Russian blue and Devon Rex.

63% of the cats signed were females, which is 4% higher than the average.

And as with other categories, classes 9, 11 and 12 were the most popular ones.

Blue and black are again dominating as colors. Red is the good runner up on the third place.

10,8% of the cats signed for category 4 were absent on the show day. It is 1,8% higher than the average.

Total of 45 BIVs were given.

168 Nominations were given, from which 77 lead to BIS.

And below is the list of entries per judge, Mr. Veikko Saarela having the most category 4 cats to evaluate.

And finally the amount of cats who were nominated and achieved Best In Show per judge.

Statistics from Polish Cat Shows - Chapter #4

And to continue with the statistics, below you can find the data for category III cats. The data is up to 24th of April, 2017.
If you missed the previous statistics, you can find them all from here.

So lets get started!
In total 672 entries. British shorthair, Bengals and Burmas being the most popular breeds to sign up for the show.

60% of the cats signed were female.

And as per with other breeds, most popular classes were 9, 11 and 12.

Black and blue were the most popular colors.

7.7% of  the cats signed were absent on the show day.
Results given were as follows:

Total of 60 BIVs were given, and most of them for BSH.

165 Nominations for Best in Show were given, from which 69 lead to BIS (41.8%)

And here is a list of how many category III cats were signed per judge.

And the percentage of cats who were nominated and achieved Best in Show.

Statistics from Polish Cat Shows - Chapter #3

Below you can find some statistics from cat shows in Poland (year 2017 - data up to 25th of April, 2017) for category II. 

If you missed the previous posts, take a look here.

First of all, the split between breeds. It is quite visible which is the most popular cat breed from category II, Maine Coon with 50% of the entries. Later on with more data I will be making individual statistics from only Maine Coons.

The division between sexes is almost equal to the one in Category I and all breeds.

The division between show classes is as follows. 9, 11 and 12 are again the most popular classes to show cats. 

Below is the chart of division by color. As in category I, I have not included litters and the color is just the "base" EMS color without any splits between tabbies, cats with white and so on. These statistics I will then provide when examining stats per breed.

For category II the most popular color was black (n), followed by blue (a) and black tortie (f). 

The given results from the show can be seen in the table below. 

145 BIVs (Best in Variety) were given, the below chart shows for which breeds.

From the below chart you can see the NOM vs BIS ratio.

Here is a list of how many entries from category II each judge had for evaluation.

And below, what percentage of cats presented to the judge gained Best In Show

Statistics from Polish Cat Shows - Chapter #2

Below you can find some statistics for Category I during the shows in Poland 2017 (the data is up to date 25.4.2017).

For more general data you can read the previous chapter.

During 2017 (to date) Category I has been the least popular in the shows, at least according to the entries.

From category I breeds, below is the split showing that Ragdolls are way more popular than any other breed.

When the entries are split per sex we can observe that the percentages are almost the same as with the combined all breeds (male 39%, female 59%, litters 2%).

The entries to show per class are split as seen in the table below. The correlation between all breed and category I data shows that the split is almost equal, classes 9, 12 and 11 being the most popular ones and neuter classes being the least popular (34 entries).

When the entries are split by color it shows that blue and black are the most commonly seen.

The results are split as follows. 7% of the cats have been absent from the show, which is 2% less than the all breed data.

52 BIVs were given (only to ragdolls) during 2017.
NOM vs BIS ratio per breed falls as below (please note also litters and veterans are calculated to this data).

And below you can find a list of judges and amounts of cats evaluated in category I

And from the list below you can see the percentage of cats receiving NOM per judge (total is 37% of cats from category I were nominated)

And in the last table you can see the percentages of the entries per judge who achieved Best In Show.

Statistics from Polish Cat Shows - Chapter #1

As I am quite a freak when it comes to making graphs and statistics (yes, I actually do enjoy this!) I decided to provide some general statistics (more detailed ones are on the way) based on the data found from catshow.eu webpage for year 2017 (data up to date 24th of April, 2017). As the year will go forward I will keep updating the statistics.
Please keep in the mind that the data is calculated as individual signups per show (2723 signups, 12 showdays).

First of all, the cats split by category.

It is easy to see that in Poland category 2 is the most popular, followed by category 3, 2 and 4.

From the cats signed the split per sexes (class 16 has no determined sex, but are included in the data)

So according to the above data, female cats are participating to the shows more than the male cats.

When the data is reviewed by the show class, we can find the below result:

This data clearly shows that class 9 (open class) is the most popular, followed by class 12 and 11. There are not that many entries for neuters (total of 104) which shows that showing neuters is not that popular in Poland.

When we check what results cats have received, we can see that most of the cats have been rewarded excellent.

Only five cats were disqualified, one received Very Good and three were given "change colour".

The amount of absent cats is 9% from all the cats signed for show.

So this is something as a starter for more detailed study of the cat show results in Poland. More to come (splits between category breeds, what breed+color+sex cat you should have to have the best possibilities for winning Best In Show and so on!).

Stay tuned for the following chapters!

Szczecin Cat Show 1.-2.4.2017

So, on Friday we took off to head towards the coast, to Szczecin (I really want to by more vowels to that place name!). Travel was quite uneventful and first surprise came after arrival to the city, the politeness of the people. Even the taxi driver was full of smile and happy to transport me for the couple kilometer distance to my hotel.
After paying a nominal fee with tip (still like 4 euros in total!) I got our room in Hotel Gryf. The hotel decor definitely remembered communism times even it was obvious some renovations were done. But the room was big and bed was good, what else I can hope for.

So after sleeping few hours it was time to pack up the cats and head towards the catshow. With me was our housecat NW15 Lilith, DSM and our first ever classical tabby from our own breeding, Itzpzpalotl Via Nocturna - OSH c 22 - alias Hyvinkaa.
On Saturday both of the cats were nominated and Lilith won her Best in Show. Hyvinkaa was facing against a beautiful devon rex and the votes were tied. But in the end, Hyvinkaa won the draw and got her first ever Best in Show at age of 7 months.
On Sunday Lilith was shining again and was nominated and won Best in Show. Also our Hyvinkaa was nominated and in the panel she won BIS with ALL votes.
Needless to say I am very proud of our young girl. Greatest compliments she received from her pattern and her awesome eye color.

I had a great pleasure to carry such great cats in the panel for both days and as a steward receiving compliments from the owner means for me a lot :) Thank you all who entrusted your cats to my hands for the Best in Show ring.

Now it is time to rest for few days before we head out again on Friday towards Lubon show.
This is going to be a very busy year in the shows, and not just for showing our cats.

Thank you Szczecin and see you again next time!

And just to add... there will be bigger updates coming to our cattery website later this week, so please stay tuned :)

Our first Supreme Champion!

Exactly 666 days ago our B-litter was born from IC&IP Rimppakintun Aamuvarhain (OLH e 24) and CH LadywithRed Van Crystaltina (OSH f 03 25). Never I would have believed, that in less than 2 years we would have our first Supreme Champion. But now it is here, when Blackrock gained his last CACS for the title!

Blackrock as kitten

I want to thank all the judges who has seen the quality of Blackrock and given him his certificates and also awarded him with their nice words. And also big thanks to go to all the stewards who have presented Blackrock (alias A-A) in the Best in Show rings, bringing us now total of 20 BIS-winnings and multiple Best of Best placements.  (A-A's showresults)

We are not retiring him from the shows ;) He will just have a small break now before entering back to the show rings to hunt down the last BIS result for his DSM title - which is well deserved.

So thank you everyone who has been involved for making this real! What a Mother's day gift!