Our family always had a cat - usually a calico longhair, so it was inevitable that when I started to breed pedigrees I started with a tortie and white Persian, and focused on breeding  bicolours. In 1998, I saw my first chocolate Persian and fell instantly in love with this stunning and unusual colour.

My first attempts at chocolate bicolours were less than successful. The quality of chocolates needed to drastically improve if I was to get anywhere.

The gene pool for chocolates in New Zealand is very small - even world wide it is very restricted. Pedigree research soon shows that very many chocolate cats go back to the same cats and the same bloodlines are repeated over and over. It is very hard to improve the type with such a small baseline.

So, a large part of the focus for my programme has been widening my gene pool base, collecting my chocolate genes from as many different bloodlines as possible, and then outcrossing with the very best Persian cats I can, to improve the type with every generation. Recently, it has become possible to DNA test for the chocolate gene which ia a huge step forward for all chocolate breeders.

In the last few years I have imported several cats that have each had a very positive impact on my breeding programme, and are starting to also influence the overall quality of the chocolate cats in New Zealand. 

I must pay special tribute to my first import - NZ Ch Pirayas Lav Me Do, (pet name, Krona) a beautiful lilacpoint boy from Sweden, with wonderful USA and European lines behind him. See Krona and some of my other special past cats on the GALLERY page. Sadly, we lost Krona to cancer in April 2006. But, his legacy lives on in his daughters, granddaughters and grandsons that show his own special look – very round heads, little ears and big round wide spaced eyes.

My Exotic programme runs alongside my Persian programme, but while the two breeds are inter-matable I keep a very clear distinction between them. All the cats featured on my Persian pages are pure Persian with no Exotic behind them.

I aim to produce healthy happy kittens with a sweet open expression, that can more than hold their own on the show bench, but that are also loving and affectionate companion pets.

I have spent the last few years working on improving the type on my solid chocolates, with the aim of  returning to my first love - the bicolours. The new generation  of ROSIMORN chocolate bicolours are underway!  See them on my PERSIAN and EXOTIC pages, and on the showbench next season.