Why?

From the beginning of our breeding career we have had intention to maintain a broad genetic base of Cornish Rex. In 1999, we got from England a chocolate stud Risto (CH Sebbitiboo Christopher) who had mixed pedigree. Risto had behind both his parents mixed Russian-blue, British shorhair and Siamese cats. Risto's pedigree. Very interesting pedigree in our point of view. We were told that this cat ruins rex breed being such as a mixture. That Risto is not not even proper Cornish Rex. Risto's grandgrandchild is World Winner WW02 FI*Piupaws Pirkko Potter. Risto lived a long life in good health and died of cancer one day short of 16 years of age. Risto has children's children, now in the ninth generation.

Later we bought from Sweden a female cat Farie's Halo who has house cat mix in fouth generation. Mix was made in Fairyland's cattery, Sweden. Neiti Halonen's pedigree. Halonen had one litter and her line continues in several catteries in Finland and other countries.

In Holland de Levant cattery did housecat mix in 90's. They used domestic cat female from Jordan. Unfortunately we were not able to have any kitten from that combination or the next generations. Three of the mixed cats were used in cornish rex breeding. There are no cats from that bloodline in Finland. This is the pedigree of the first mix. In Australia and England there are some mixes and also in Russia. Behind nearly all Scadinavian cornish rexes is a male born 1977, EC Chaumier (pedigree). Chaumier was very succesfull show cat in his time and he was F2 mix with russian blue. There is also oriental shorthair, siamese and brittish shorhair in his pedigree.

That's about all cornish rexes we have found with mixed pedigree. So we desided to put up cornish rex mix project ourself.

Cornish rex breed

Cornish rex breed is origininally from England from 1950 when Cornish farmer's housecat Selena got a strange litter. There was one different, oriental type, curly coated male. This cat was named Kallibunker. Later Selena was mated with Kallibunker and so they found out curly coat was hereditary. Cornish rex has its origin from one cat Kallibunker and his mother Selena. Kallibunker is behind every single cornish rex in the world. At the moment total inbreeding coefficent is about 15-20 % looked from Pawpeds. When cornish rex breeding started early breeders used wide variety of different cats to put up the breed: siamese, brittish shorthair, burmese, russian blue, american shorthair, havanna brown and oriental. And housecat. Cornish rex is not based on domestic cats from any certain area. Nowadays cornish rexes have about 20-30 generations to Kallibunker and Kallibunker has percentage about 15-20 % of every cat's pedigree.

At this moment there are no clear problems related to inbreeding debression. Our aim is to work to widen the genepool before there are problems. There is no need to wait for the catastrofy when rational moves can be made in advance. Cornish rexes have some problems with FIP, allergies and autoimmune syndromes. Those are the main things we were looking for to help. That is why we wanted to choose a cat that is not any specific breed, a cat that has survived many generations without people interfering and also we hoped that this kind of feral cat would have a good genetic immune system.

Eleni

According to Dr Leslie Lyons all domestic cats are originally from Mediterennial area. Cornish rex's home country is England, so in genetics rexes are closest to English domestic cat and breeds that were bred in UK in 50's. Cornish rex is a popular breed in USA and Canada but there are no mixes behid those cats in many generations. In North American there are lot's of rexes but their gene pool is narrower than Scandinavian and European cornish rexes. We cannot rely that importing cats from other countries we would widen our Finnish rexes gene pool. Breed is not popular in central Europle and there are only few breeders in that area.

So, for the project we needed suitable cat. We were looking for a cat originally from Turkey, Greek, Egypt or other country in Mediterennial area. By change we heard about Eleni.

Eleni is born in Finland and has always been indoors. Eleni's both parents are imported from Greek. Eleni's breeder and first owner lives partly in Finland and Greek and has taken with her wild domestic cats that she has found from the streets. Eleni is small, elegant, with straight profile and upright ears. Her colour is bronwspotted with white. Eleni has two sisters and one brother and they all are nice and healthy housecats.

Mix project, part I, F1 generation

As for the stud we chose South African import Mistbesque Rock Star (CRX a), Gibson. He is purely what we call "Yankee", his pedigree is from North America and has origins to the first cornish rexes that were taken from England to USA. Gibson has no European or Scandinavian rexes in his pedigree. So kittens from this combination could later be integreted to any rex in Finland without hardly any line breeding.

Eleni x Gibson

The first generation all kittens will have normal straight hair. They all carry rex gene. When these straight coated cats are combined with cornish rex, half of the kittens will get curly coat. We got a special permission to do this litter from Suomen Kissaliitto (Fife).

Eleni and Gibson had four girl kittens born 12 November 2011. Unfortunately one of the girls died at the age of 2 months to pneumonia. Three girls grew up to nice and pretty cats. They are registered and they have pedigrees from Kissaliitto:

FI*Piupaws X Chromosome, CRX n 09 (CRX), Mini "Tiny"
FI*Piupaws Xbox, CRX a 03 (CRX), Pieni "Small"
FI*Piupaws X Factor, CRX a 03 (CRX), Iso "Big"

Eleni with kittens

Here all four. We lost little tabby, she had pneumonia but the course was not found in autopsy.

Iso

Pieni

Mini & friends

Iso and Pieni

Mix project, part II, generation F2

We kept all three girls for the future breeding. Now we plan to continue project to next generation. Blackwhite Mini "Tiny" lives in foster home in Turku and bluewhite Pieni "Small" is with Heli. Bluewhite sister Iso "Big" is in reserve if later we want to have a litter with her too.

The studs are chosen so that they are as little than possible related to Gibson. And also that the males are not related to each other. This will give a wide possibilies to the next generation to choose partners. The males have exellent rexing and they are good in type. Both are healthy cats with nice temperament.

If we compare the males to each other, their inbreeding coefficient would be:
four generations 0 %,
six generations 0 %,
eight generations 0,669

We got special permit from Suomen Kissaliitto, Fife, to do these matings.

Litter 1
male Puraffection’s Paras Punainen, CRX d 03 24 (Panu-Petteri)
female FI*Piupaws X Chromosome, XSH n 09 (CRX) Mini

Pedigree

Inbreeding coefficient is
four generations 0 %
six generations 0,122 %
eight generations 0,758 %
total 9,87 % (Pawpeds)

FI*Piupaws Cavia Porcellus, XSH f 03 (CRX)
Born 23.10.2013

Litter 2 was born 5.11.2014

 Male: CH S*Rexture Wig Wam, CRX d 03, SRK LO 40777 (total IB 24,9 %), imp from Sweden
Female: FI*Piupaws Xbox, XSH a 03 (CRX), SRK RX 40100
 Inbreeding % are
 four generations 0 %
 six generations 0 %
 eight generations 0,14 %
 total 10,0 %

FI*Piupaws Skipper, XSH n 03 (straight coat)
FI*Piupaws Kowalski, XSH n 01 (straight coat)
FI*Piupaws Private, XSH n 03 (rex)

Litter 3, born 29.3.2015

male: SC FI*Piupaws Robin, CRX d 24, SRK LO 40541 (total IB 20,2 %)
female: FI*Piupaws X Factor, XSH a 03 (CRX), SRK RX 40099
Inbreeding % are
four generations 0 %,
six generations 0 %,
eight generations 0,647 %
 total 9,76 %

blue male
bluespotted white male
bluewhite male
calicospotted white female

All straight coat

At the moment our project has proceded like this:

Part III, generation F3

Spring 2015 we will aply permission to use Piupaws Cavia Porcellus (Marsu) for breeding with cornish rex male. Marsu has grown a very beautifull young elegant lady.