🐾 Savannah Cat: Your new pet
The Savannah cat is a stunning breed, relatively new, which comes from wild ancients, so its appearance remembers to a leopard in a medium version; this is the Savannah cat, with a weight that, depending on the generation can reach the 50 pounds.
The Savannah cat is an enigmatic feline, as big as loving and affective, that has an extremely active and intrepid personality. It loves to play with its owner, follow him all over the house, and also enjoy exercise, it are great jumpers.
These cats breed is very recent, because of its origins a few 30 years ago, in the ‘80s, when it got mixed the African Serval cat with some domestic cats. The Serval African cat is a medium or small-sized feline, but it is bigger than the domestic cat and has very long and thin legs.
The Savannah cat is then a hybrid and exotic cat; its domestic cat behavior and its wild look inherited from its ancient the African Serval, makes this breed much popular in hour homes, spotlighting for its wild and majestic look.
Sometimes, the Savannah cat can be confused with the Bengal cats for its tiger-lookalike, similar to leopards, but is body structure is pretty different. Besides that, the Savannah is famous, due to this cat breed owns the Guinness record for the taller cat in the world.
At first sight, the Savannah may look like a little wild fierce, but the reality is that it is a domestic cat as docile as any other. Its look is stunning; it reunites the wild and imposing appearance of the Servals, with a medium-sized and stylized body, a little bit bigger than a common cat, with long legs, and also a playful and friendly behavior.
The Savannah cats belong to a relatively new breed that is just getting rename in the felines associations; it has already been officially recognized by the International Cat Association since 2002, and the studies about this breed keep going to determine and describe deeper its characteristics and behavior.
Fortunately, it lookalike most to its wild ancient the African Serval, but its personality goes more into the domestic cat, loving with humans, isn’t usually problematic, with a good adaptation to the domestic environment, but in some cases it can show a dominant and territorial temperament, that can be corrected with the proper cares and education since it is kittens.
The Savannah cat breed it’s still in a perpetuation and settlement process, so it would be hard to find him out of the USA, which is its origin place. Having a Savannah cat you acquire and exotic and stunning pet and, at the same time, an affective and curious pet. It likes to play outside, go to the streets, and even play in the water.
These traits come from their wild genetic heritage. Nowadays exist a controversy about if the mixed types tested and its perpetuation with the human intervention, is acceptable or if it just is a play of humans to create new breeds.
Anyways, the Savannah cat is a beautiful exemplar that no doubt could become an amazing pet. ¡It would be like to have your little leopard at home! i
🐾 Savannah Cat’ history and origin
Through the years, the feline’s raisers have manifesting its purpose to get more attractive exemplars, stronger, and also easy to be domesticated. For this purpose, by 1986 it was decided to mix a Tabby domestic cat with an American African Serval. This mix was made by the raiser Judee Frank.
The serval cat is a wild feline that comes from Africa, medium-sized, that can reach a weight of 40 pounds, but sometimes wavy exemplars have been reported. It usually has 4 pups after 65 days of gestation. This breed was recorded for the first time in 1776 by a German naturalist.
From this first mix the result was a little kitty that inherited the principal characteristics of its father, the African serval, about its size, the spotted of its fur, but also part of the wild feline instinct was attenuate for its heritage of the domestic behavior of its mother, that was a domestic cat.
After this, some cat raisers got interested in this special and lighting kitty, reason why they decided to keep on developing the breed searching for a domestic cat breed with the elegant appearance of the leopards, which would be an amazing pet at home. Multiple mixes were made with the Siamese breed, a common short hair cat, oriental shorthair cat, the Egyptian Mau, and the Ocicat.
Finally, in 2012 it was officially accepted as a breed by the TICA (The International Cat Association), which recognized 5 generations of Savannah cats (F1, F2, F3, F4, F5) that is how they classified the domestication generations. It’s known that the new generations are smaller than the first ones, and are also more docile and easier to domesticate.
This new breed has had a big placement and has waked up a big interest between the cat raisers and cat lovers. This breed got the name of Savannah due to it was the name given to the first pup born from the mix of the serval cat and the domestic cat. It was called Savannah because the African Serval lived on the savannah of sub-Saharan Africa; it means the south of the Sahara desert, from these names it’s composed the name of the “Savannah” cat breed.
The new Savannah cats breed has felines that distinguish firstly for its spotted fur lookalike to the leopard. From its wild ancient, the African serval cat, this cat inherited the physic characteristics, the form of the face, and the tiger-lookalike or spotted fur. Its behavior is similar to the domestic cat and while it goes on in generations, it becomes more familiar.
🐾 Savannah’s characteristics
When you see this little kitten the first thought you have is about a small leopard. The look of the Savannah cat is wild, sylvan and exotic, which makes it a very striking cat. Besides that, its fur is spotted, that is its most distinctive characteristic, is big size appearance stand out for the common in domestic cats. The Savannah cats can reach a height of 60cm, and a weight from 17 to 50 pounds. As in most of the feline breeds, males use to be bigger than females.
The weight of the Savannah cat is variable, and it depends on the African serval percentage it inherited, maybe as small as of 11 or 13 pounds, or as big as to overcome the 44 pounds. This feline has won the title as the bigger cat in the world thanks to the genes it inherited of its wild ancient. However, while more mixes with domestic cats and fewer genes of the African serval are inherited, the Savannah cat size decreased, and star to lookalike more to domestic cats.
About its body, the Savannah is a big cat, long, strong and stylized; its extremities are elongated, thin and agile, like its all body represented long line series. Its tail is also long, and it gets thin while it’s going to the end, and this has a well delimited dark rings series.
The head is medium-sized and triangular, with a pair of big eyes that are a little bit rounded or with an almond form, and are green, brown, or yellow, and are commonly edged with an intense black, which makes its eyes look very expressive. The nose is width but not too prominent.
Most of the Savannah cats are known by its width ears, rounded, big and pointy located at the top of the head, which it inherited from its wild ancients. Depending on the generation, other exemplars may have common ears, similar to the domestic cat’s ears.
Its fur is the most outstanding characteristic of the Savannah cats. It’s protected with short and soft hair, it looks peachy and is commonly brown, orange or amber, with spots and dark brown or black lines, but there are other tones and combinations. Other exemplars may have a cream base color.
The fur is the hard point of the Savannah cats because it is what makes them so exotics and stunning. Its tiger-lookalike or spotted patron in yellows, oranges, blacks, and browns, give it a mini leopard look; they look beautiful and attractive. Other color tones for the Savannah cats may be:
– Tabby with silver spots.
– Marble, with the spots making a combination with the tabby, giving the appearance of marble in spirals of brown or silver.
– Smoked black, with a black tabby but the spots are even blacks, making a smoked visual effect.
– Other unusual and no common colors are the cinnamon, blue or dark silver grey, beige and even white. This last one makes them get the name of Snow Savannah or White Savannah cat, with a base fur cream or white colored with beige spots.
🐾 Character and personality
The best of both worlds… the wild and attractive appearance, a playful and friendly kitten behavior, that’s how it is the Savannah. This breed is very loyal, curious and active, and it’s even been compared with dogs, besides they are very smarts and can be trained to make tricks, sit, or jump. The Savannah is a very sociable feline with others company animals as well as with human beings, even if they are strangers.
Usually, the Savannah Cat doesn’t have temperament problems, it is very nice and smart, but can be a dominant animal due to its personality characteristics inherited from its wild ancients. The most convenient is that if you have other small dogs as rodents or birds, then you must take some necessary forecasts to avoid problems and conflicts related to the hunter spirit of the Savannah cat.
This cat enjoys a lot the external environments and has some tendency to scape, which can be controlled with good training since they are kittens, so it’s not recommendable for the Savannah to be adopted by persons who don’t have any experience about cat rising. Especially it has to pay more attention to those Savannah generations that are closer to its serval ancient, due to this use to keep more characteristics, not just physicals but also the behavior, of the wild cat.
Even though the Savannah cats are great pets, its wild side is characteristic of being active, jumper, climber, and escapist, able to sneak away to any corner of the house. It loves outside activities and has a particular love for the hunt of rodents, ¡By-bye to the backyard rodents!
In its lovely side, it is very close to its owner, creating and special link and following him everyplace. They use to lick their favorite humans as a show of love and affection, just as the dogs do.
It is known that these cats’ behavior seems affected by the wild blood percentage they have, which depends on the Savannah cat generation. If it is F1 OR F2, then we have a more active cat, no too much interested about love and care; while if we are talking about an F3, F4, or F5 exemplar, it would be a cat more likely to be around humans and will enjoy their company, with a domestic behavior.
The Savannah cats have an amazing personality thanks to the mix of the wild and domestic genes. They keep the agility and independence of a wild feline animal combined with the sweetness and loyalty of a domestic cat. They usually are very extroverted and funny, ready to learn quickly, and are pretty curious and love to explore all the spaces around them. Are cats with a medium and high activity level, and this has to be considered to keep them happy.
Its hunting abilities are exceptional. They can even jump over 2m of distance, thanks to its long a flexible legs and its athletic body. Besides, apart from most of the other felines, the Savannah loves water and likes to swim and splash in puddles.
The Savannah cats, depending on its origin, has been classified in generations from F1 to F5, where F1’ cats are the pups that are born of the mix of the Serval and the domestic cat. The F2 are pups born from a Savannah mixed with a domestic cat, and there it goes until getting to the F5, that will be cats with a genealogic tree where the African Serval is 5 generations back. This is why the F1 Savannah cats will have a wilder behavior and will be bigger, contrarily to the F5 Savannah cats, that will have a lovely behavior and will be smaller. It gets estimated that depending on the generation the Savannah will keep a serval cat percentage how it shows belong:
- F1 Savannah Cat: 50% Serval
- F2 Savannah Cat: 25% Serval
- F3 Savannah Cat: 12% Serval
- F4 and F5 Savannah Cat: % minimal Serval
🐾 Savannah cat’ diet and feeding
For the feeding, the Savannah cat requires high quality and careful diet. It is recommended to give them food with the highest standards, without cereals or by-products. An optimal and adequate diet will provide healthy growth and development.
Just as every cat breeds, the Savannah felines need to eat meat. The most adequate is the free cereals and by-products foods, just as the Applaws, the Alcanna, the Orijen, and the Taste of the Wild, or the True Instinct, in its High Meat variety.
Another thing to consider about its feeding is that due the Savannah is a big cat it will need more food than its pals of the same species, and it always has to be high-quality. It is a pretty active cat, but if it has been castrated the right food, to avoid it gets overweight.
Also, another advice, besides giving them cat food, is to give them occasionally meat, like 3 a week, where it will get the right nutrients to look strong, stylized, and with a lighting and exceptional velvety fur.
Natural feeding is also a good option for the Savannah cat. In this case, it is recommendable do give them the cats’ Yum Diet, Summun or Barf, of course after the approval of a feline nutritionist.
The YUM diet, one of the most appropriated for cats, it’s based in full menus of different kinds of meats like chicken, veal, ox, foal, and some fishes as the salmon. With these 100% natural products they get the right meat amount; to this diet are added some vegetable complements, trying to simulate a diet as close as if they would be in their natural state.
The meet has to be rightly packaged and preserved. The YUM diet menus are made up of raw meat and other vegetable origin elements that give the Savannah cats all the nutrients they need. Some examples of the YUM diet are:
- The full lamb menu based on 19% of lamb, 60% of chicken, 10% of carrot, 5% of beet, 5% of turnips, and 1% of olive oil.
- The full deer menu, with a 70% of deer, 5% of apple, 5% of carrot, 5% of turnips, 5% of quinoa, %5 of beet, and 1% of olive oil.
- The full salmon menu, which includes 20% of salmon, 59% of lamb, 100% of carrot, 5% of beet and turnip each one, and a little bit of salmon oil, just a 1%.
Whit these diet examples you will naturally enrich the Savannah cat feeding, and it will joy of good health and a soft and lighting fur, even more striking. The YUM diet can be complemented with the best quality cat foods.
If you want to give a 100% natural origin food diet to the Savannah cat, the most appropriate thing to do is go to the veterinary or with a feline nutritionist expert, to get advice about the portions and proper amounts of food for the pet.
🐾 Savannah cat’ health
The cats of this new Savannah breed generally have good health, are strong and athletics with a living hope between 10 and 20 years.
Even though the studies are fewer because the relatively recent appearances of the Savannah breed no severe health problems or any characteristic disease has been identified. It’s known that the Savannah cats have a characteristic known as hybrid vigor, which means a lot of vitality and resistance, due to the mix of its wild ancients.
Besides of its good health, as any other feline, the Savannah cat can get sick, so if you look that it lost its appetite, has apathy apathetic, lose weight, or isn’t as active as it use to be, maybe this are signals that show us that it is sick, so you must take it to the veterinary if you have a suspect, and also watch periodically its growth and development to discard any pathology, at least twice a year.
It is a strong, big, and healthy cat. However, due to it is an hybrid cat, which means that is product of a mix of an African serval with a domestic cat, the Savannah cats may have some health conditions different from the other domestic cats, between it can be mentioned:
– Visceral problems: some exemplars have shown a smaller size in their liver and kidneys, so you need to be very careful when you give them medicines.
– Infertility: Many F1 Savannah cats can be infertile, especially males. The infertility is less while it goes on in generations.
– Gestation problems: They could suffer premature births due to the gestation time is different. The common in cats is 60 days; while in the serval is 75 days.
– Medicine resistance: It been recorded that some Savannah cats may show resistance to anesthetic medication, this is why it is recommendable to use a specific injectable anesthetic for exotic cats or hybrids when any operation or procedure needs to be done.
Due to its recent origins, it doesn’t exist yet enough veterinarian records to know the most frequents and possible health problems, nevertheless, the studies about this breed keep going on, especially in the health field, since it is feared that as result of the mix; the hybrid cats may hide some problems and genetic disorders that could appear late in the Savannah cat’ life or in later generations.
Besides, the Savannah cat has denied them entry to some countries and even can be rejected for the U.S. because they are hybrid animals, and it is feared that its big genetic strength may compete advantageously with the local wildlife, just as they fear about this cats having genetic pathologies. Most of the hatcheries in charge of the Savannah breed take big importance by making genetic tests before making any cats mixes.
🐾 Necessary cares
The Savannah is a stylized and demanding breed that requires people who adopt them as pets to have certain experience grades about the raising and care of felines because the care and training of this cat need some particular considerations.
For its recreation and spreading, the Savannah needs to have its daily walking time, just as a dog. You can take the Savannah cat walking to a park or a square, with its harness and its belt, the most adequate is to take it walking in quiet places.
Likewise, it has to have time at home. With two or three play sessions with for 10 or 15 minutes every day, you will make the Savannah the happier feline in the world.
About is cleaning, is usually enough just to brush its fur daily, or twice a week to erase the dead fur, keep the velvety shine, and reduce the risk of trichobezoars; likewise, its eyes have to been cleaned once or twice a week with a wet gauze in physiologic solution, or chamomile water. The same clean and cares for the eyes can be used to clean its ear, which needs to be cleaned regularly.
A healthy diet and with the best qualities foods will keep the Savannah cat strong, energetic and healthy. It is recommendable a combination of dry foods and wet foods ad naturals as possible.
As well, you have to take it frequently to the veterinary; this will keep updated its vaccines and deworming.
At home, you have to provide the right space, a big corner, comfortable and nice where the Savannah can rest and feel good, and where it can move freely, and this way you’ll avoid stress episodes.
The ideal home for the Savannah cat is one that has enough places to have fun because they are very actives and playful. It would be fantastic for it t have a cat gym where the Savannah can exercise by jumping from a level to another. Let them go outside also is a great idea to let this kitten free its energy.
About the coexistence with other animals it is generally good; there can even have a great friendship between the Savannah and other pets, and also about the Savannah and other members of the house, so it is important to train it since is a little kitty. This way, it can get used to socialize with others and be more kind and loving.
With these easy considerations, the Savannah cat will be the most exotic and showy wild pet animal, with the loving character of the domestic cats.