The Cattery


When the opportunity arose to return to Sydney to be closer to family we found ourselves with many new directions. One of which was establishing Megellna Australian Mist Cattery. Our cattery is a serious hobby involving many hours of effort, but with great joy as we find in our feline friends, many benefits more closely aligned with our advancing age.

This “age thing”, led us to deciding particularly on the Australian Mist breed of cat. “Mists” are an interactive cat, closely fitting into their family’s daily routine, both social and work. With an intense interest in all things interesting to their humans, Mists develop their activity levels according to the home timetable.

Our first 12 months in this “new” house was spent making adjustments for the management and housing of the cats. First on the list was the setting up and re-flooring of a room opening off the family room/kitchen in the main part of the house to be known as "the Nursery". This was to be the room in which kittens would be born and raised for the first 8 weeks of their life.

The position of this room in the house was very important, as we were particularly wanting to raise kittens who would be integrated into the household from birth. New doors were specially made and fitted, designed with lite panels and mesh panels, meaning the sights, smells and sounds of a normal household were available to the kittens from the earliest days in their new world.

These sights sounds and smells became part of the post-natal acceptance (known as “imprinting”) for the kittens. This ensured the kittens were familiar with and more importantly, already confident in a normal household environment before leaving the nest. In our past experience with training animals it was clear that this acceptance of environment was cruicial to the breeding of the well-balanced, calm and confident animals we sought to provide to those family homes wishing to adopt an Australian Mist kitten.