About Us

Here at Hemlock we have been breeding and sometimes showing Siamese and Orientals for in excess of 20 years. Our website is brand new and has been something we have wanted to set up for some time now, although previously we have always found homes for our babies and let people know about our cats via word of mouth and friends and fellow breeders in the cat world. In fact many of our kittens have found fabulous homes with earlier siblings as we often find that once a Hemlock baby has time to "wind it's spell" on its new owners they fast become hooked and are soon asking us for another little tear away! I find that the biggest compliment and am always very flattered when it happens.

My first Siamese was an adorable chocolate point boy accompanied by his Oriental sister who was a typical "naughty tortie", both purchased from a lovely breeder way back in the 80s!! At this point in our lives my hubby and I fast became addicted to Siamese and Orientals, that is after the initial shock and amazement that any cat could be so ridiculously affectionate, super intelligent, extremely talkative and sociable and of course very, very naughty!! We certainly were kept well entertained back then! Not long after we decided to show the little tortie girl who was named "Gizmo" after one of the gremlins - we thought it appropriate. Her neutered brother Clarence preferred to stop at home and was shall we say a little too portly for the show bench. We thoroughly enjoyed the shows, meeting hundreds of equally potty cat people and soon made the decision to have a go at breeding our own kittens.

Although breeding our own kittens has not been an easy ride (and any established breeder who tells you it's plain sailing is not being entirely honest ), we have on the whole enjoyed producing and rearing our own kittens and the pleasure they have given us. One of the big problems we have is that because they are always such characters who demand to be loved and cuddled 24/7 it is such a wrench when they finally leave for pastures new. On the up side they have all ended up with super owners who are always sending me emails and pictures and updates. Half of my Christmas cards and messages are from our babies new owners, some have been coming for years! Have a look at some of our previous kittens in their new homes from the link on our home page.

We raise our babies in a busy and noisy environment and they are socialized with other cats, dogs and worst of all teenagers and all the din and commotion that goes with them, as well as hammering and banging from my husband during the building work so they are normally pretty bomb proof by the time they are ready to go on to their new slaves.!

We do like to show and when we are lucky enough to get a particularly nice show quality kitten then we take them out on the show bench ourselves or in some special cases we allow them to go on to be show cats at their new homes. Producing show cats is not our paramount aim and we try and breed healthy, sturdy and well socialized babies who adjust and settle in well in their new home environment. The most important thing of all is that all our cats are primarily pets and we would hope the same for our kittens. If any of our cats doesn't like to be shown then no matter how beautiful they are, they stop at home and similarly if one of our girls is not suited to or not happy having kittens then they are neutered .and again spend the rest of their lives as a pet. Even our boys do not spend all of their lives as stud cats and are neutered at a young age and go on to spend a happy retirement as a pampered pet and so they should, they deserve it.

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