About Belle Ami Bengals
In 2023 we were very pleased to be chosen to do an interview about bengal cats for Catster Magazine. Below is part of our interview. Catster is a great resource for all things related to cats!
Professional cat breeder. Lol!
Professional kitten socializers.
🐾 Our Memberships in the Cat Community
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TIBCS ~ The International Bengal Cat Society
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TICA ~ The International Cat Association
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CFA ~ Cat Fancier Association
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The Bengal Cat Club
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Greater Baton Rouge Cat Club
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I'm also involved in many many Facebook Bengal groups. Too many to list!
🐾 Cat Shows
I absolutely LOVE going to cat shows! Unfortunately, having a toddler and two kids in school, I can only attend about 4-5 a year. Most of the cat shows are pretty far from where we live. If you would like to see pictures and awards we have won, visit our cat show page.
🐾 About Out Cattery
Our cattery is Belle Ami Bengals. “Belle Ami” means “beautiful friend” in French. I truly couldn’t have picked a more appropriate name for our cattery, since Bengals are indeed beautiful and wonderful companions! They are unlike any other cat I’ve ever seen—always affectionate and social, always ready to play, extremely intelligent, and they form such a strong bond with people. It’s really amazing!!!
We are located in beautiful southern Louisiana, and we have been breeding Bengal cats since 2008. I absolutely love, love, love this cat breed! I’m so happy to have provided kittens to so many families who completely agree with me that Bengals are truly amazing cats!
Our newest addition to the family, Brooklynn, absolutely loves spending time with the cats and kittens.
🐾 Raising our Kittens With Our Family
All of our kittens are raised INSIDE our home with our family. My twin daughters, Bailey and Blair, just adore kittens! Their job is to help by playing with them and holding them nonstop. Because of the constant attention they receive, the kittens are very social and affectionate. If our babies aren’t taking a cat nap… someone is playing with them!
The kittens are born in our special nursery room inside our home. This gives the moms plenty of privacy and a little less noise compared to the rest of the house—LOL! I can also sit with them or sleep right next to them all night, ready to assist if needed. After the kittens arrive, I’m able to check on them constantly throughout the day to make sure everyone is eating well and gaining weight. My girls have full access to the kittens at all times, and they go in to pet and spend time with both the babies and the moms whenever they like.
My twin daughters have been raised with Bengals since they were infants and have helped me with them since they were toddlers by socializing them, even though they may not have realized it way back then.
When the babies still have their eyes closed, we go in to pet them and their moms. This is so helpful in socializing the kittens. The babies are so used to being petted that at a very young age, many of them will start to roll over for belly rubs or purr like crazy. It's very sweet!
🐾 Early Age Socilization
We start taking the babies out for short periods of time right after they open their eyes. We put them in a basket with a warm blanket, and they will either go in the living room next to the sofa or in one of the girls' rooms with them. You'll see lots of pictures of kittens in baskets on our social media. This very early socialization is beneficial during their development. This way, they are immediately used to seeing people and being touched.
Around 3 weeks old, kittens become very curious about their surroundings. At this age, we start taking them from their mom for longer periods of time every day to sit in our laps. This is a critical period for them to spend time with people and learn not to be afraid of them. If they don't learn to trust and bond with people at this age, in my opinion, they will never be as social as cats that do. We make sure to spend extra time with them at this age. They are also starting to walk around, so we keep a small litter box nearby. Bengals are very smart; they copy what they see their mom doing. They immediately start to use the litter box on their own at around 3–4 weeks of age.
As the kittens grow, the amount of time they spend with my girls or me gets longer and longer. If it's a weekend or there's no school, and they have started eating solid food, they will spend the whole day with them. Doing this makes our kittens extremely sweet and outgoing. They absolutely adore my girls and love being around people because of all the attention they get from our family.
The kittens are very used to household noises like the TV, vacuum, blow dryer, screaming children, husbands yelling at football games on TV, washing machines, etc. They are also used to cats other than their mom. We always have a few of our queens in our house with us and a few cats that are our personal pets, and they will visit with the kittens. We rotate our breeding girls from our queen house to inside our house so that everyone gets to spend time with the family. This also helps separate the hormonally, more easily agitated pregnant girls from the rest of the group.
Socialization is so important! It takes an enormous amount of time, but it really makes a lifelong difference in the Bengals' personality. It's even more important than those leopard spots! When choosing a breeder, please take your time and choose one that you know really focuses on the socialization of their kittens.
🐾 Spoiling Our Babies
All of our breeding cats are considered our pets and are loved unconditionally. We spend time with them, lavish them with affection, play with them, give them special treats, and spend an enormous amount of money on them because they deserve the best of everything!
Our kittens are very spoiled, too! We have tons of toys all over the house and nursery, scratching posts, hideaways, climbing trees, window perches, shelves to climb on, hammocks to nap in, a cat wheel, and tunnels for them to entertain themselves with all day.
We raise our kittens on a diet of the best quality, extra high-protein, grain-free, corn- and soy-free, by-product-free, filler-free kitten food. We also use high-quality wet food daily to ensure that they are gaining weight well and arrive at your home in optimal health.
No expense is spared when it comes to our cats and kittens. Having babies is a lot of work—I know, because I'm a mom of three. It's very important that the queens are made extremely comfortable and have extra pampering.
🐾 Kitty Acomadations
Our queens stay in our house with us or in our luxurious "queen house," built especially for them with all the fancy kitty amenities. There are wall climbing accessories, a loft, toys, cozy beds, window perches, and of course, air conditioning!
If one of our queens is about to give birth, they will be kept in our nursery room in an extra-spacious enclosure so that we can monitor them and the new babies via nanny cam and keep them safe. This is the best option since we all know cats love to move kittens around and put them in places that are not ideal or safe.
You will often see the mama cats in the videos we post of the kittens. Sometimes they like to take a break from the kittens, and sometimes they like to join them for playtime.
Our boys each have their own separate enclosures, because non-neutered males can never be housed together, or they will fight badly. Each enclosure is within a building we custom-built for them. They are over a foot off the ground, so they never touch grass or dirt. The building has huge doors on the front that are shut at night or during inclement weather and opened each morning. There is an AC window unit to keep them cool if it gets too hot, heat lamps that turn on automatically if it gets too cold, and each has their own fan to ensure no mosquitoes will bother them.
In addition to keeping the temperature comfortable for them, they have hammocks to lounge in, multiple levels to climb on, perches to sit on, a house to hide away in, and multiple scratching posts. The entire building is completely shaded by our big oak trees. They have a gorgeous view of the yard, our back porch, and all the squirrels and birds.
🐾 Beware of Scammers
We have two very helpful pages on our website for anyone looking to adopt a Bengal kitten. Tips for choosing a good bengal breeder and Avoiding Bengal Kitten Scams both have so much great information. I encourage everyone to read both.
I've heard so many stories of people getting scammed over the years. I wrote the scammer page hoping it would help prevent someone from getting scammed, and I've actually had quite a few people tell me they were glad to have found it. They followed the steps, and then the person stopped responding, so they were definitely scammers.
🐾 What Our Kittens Come With
All of our kittens receive their first sets of shots, are microchipped, have a complete health and fecal exam by our vet, are wormed four times, use the litter box, and are guaranteed to be socialized before they go to their new homes.
Kittens from our cattery also come with a FIVE-year health guarantee. This is rarely done by other breeders. Most come with the standard 1-year health guarantee, and sometimes you might see someone offer a 2-year guarantee. I know our kittens are healthy, that's why I offer a 5-year guarantee. They also come with their TICA registration papers, an extremely detailed kitten care information packet, pedigree, a boutique-style gift bag with lots of our favorite kitten toys, one month of Revolution, their own mommy-and-me blanket that smells like their mom and will comfort them at their new home, lifetime help and support for any questions or concerns you may have, a contract, and their complete health records with a recommended shot schedule.
Our cattery has tested negative for all parasites, Feline Leukemia, FIV, PK Deficiency, PRA, and HCM either by genetic testing or by our vet or cardiologist.
🐾 Colors We Specialize In & Glitter
Bengals come in lots of colors, but we specialize in breeding browns and snows because those are our favorites.
Our snow Bengals come in three colors: seal lynx, seal mink, and seal sepia. The seal lynx is the lightest of the snow Bengals, and the mink and sepia are darker with more dramatic outlined rosettes. These two can be difficult to tell apart without DNA testing.
The brown Bengals come in a wide range of shades of brown. Cool browns can resemble silver Bengals. Warm browns have a golden-colored coat. And then there are some that have such a light creamy background that some people mistake them for snows. Even though the browns come in many different shades of brown, they are all referred to as brown(black) spotted tabbies on the registration.
Our breeding cats are all covered in glitter! This ensures that all of their kittens will also be glittered! If you don't know about Bengal glitter, we can tell you all about it!
🐾 Our Goals As a Breeder
All of our Bengals are carefully selected for the best traits, pedigrees, and temperaments, and they are from Championship bloodlines. I have imported gorgeous cats from Russia, Spain, and Canada to incorporate new bloodlines and improve genetic diversity for the health of the kittens.
We also strive to produce kittens with the most beautiful, well-balanced patterns possible—large, flowing rosettes, great contrast, clear coats, extra puffy whisker pads, highly glittered pelts, and that bold, eye-catching look. We love those wild, expressive faces and aim for kittens that closely resemble the Asian leopard cat, while still having the sweet, loving temperament Bengals are known for.
We sell top-quality pet Bengal kittens, breeder kittens, and show kittens. However, you will never see me list a kitten on our website as a "breeder" kitten. I'm very careful about selling breeder kittens because most people have no clue what breeding entails, how hard it truly is, and how expensive it is. People also aren't prepared to invest in the proper setup so that the breeding cats can have a comfortable, happy life. That is why I rarely sell a kitten with breeding rights.
🐾 Why Choose Us
I put forth maximum effort when it comes to my cats and my clients. I truly want to provide every client with a kitten they fall in love with and one with a personality to brag about. My job is to provide the kittens with the best care possible and interact with them like crazy so they develop the amazing personality all Bengals could potentially have.
Have you ever heard a person brag that their cat was "bottle-fed" and that's why it is so extra sweet? It's a real thing. Bottle babies are handled so much that they bond very early with humans, and they really do have exceptionally affectionate personalities.
My goal is to provide everyone with a kitten that acts like it was a bottle-fed baby.
If you are interested in purchasing a healthy, beautiful, quality Bengal kitten, please contact us. I have a flight nanny who can bring a kitten to any state. I have private ground shipping through a trusted friend if you are within 8 hours of New Orleans, and I can meet you at the Nola airport if you would like to come pick up your kitten yourself.
We would love to help you find the little leopard kitten of your dreams!
Our Mission
To breed high-quality, healthy Bengal kittens with exceptional color and contrast, large rosettes, a wild appearance, highly glittered coats, loving dispositions, and lots of purr-sonality! We give our Bengal kittens extra love and attention in order to socialize them for their new families and because we LOVE our babies!
Special thanks to Mrs. Gene Ducote, owner of Gogees Cattery, who was instrumental in the development of the Bengal breed, for mentoring me and always giving me such good advice. It was an honor to have owned two Bengals from her cattery, and I'm thrilled to be able to continue the Gogees bloodline that she worked so hard to achieve. I hope that with the knowledge I've acquired from her, I can continue to produce Bengals as beautiful as hers were! Learn more about Gogees contributions to the Bengal breed.
Our family minus our newest addition Brooklynn!
