NL*av Verden

What’s in a name?
Av Verden means “of the world” in the Norwegian language.

Our cattery is registered in FIFe on the 5th of September 2005

About us
We are Siemen (1980) and Bianca Overboom (1977). We live in Driel, a small village near Arnhem (NL) together with our son (2010) and our Wegies.

Siemen is working as a Business Insurance Specialist for a well-known Dutch bank.
Bianca is a certified journalist/writer, junior communication advisor and content manager Internet.
At the moment she is working part-time at marketing communication office, specialized in IT.  Most of our (free) time we're busy entertaining our NFO's, showing and other cat stuff. After Bianca's last housecat died, she wanted to fulfil her long-time dream: a Norwegian Forest Cat.
And so all things started...

At the beginning of 2005 we bought our first Wegie. As the saying goes: one cat just leads to another...
pretty soon we got addicted to the breed, and after a while we decided to start a small cattery.

This decision was not made from one day to the other. We had a lot of talks with friends who breed and also had to ’convince’ each other. Our philosophy of breeding is based on the idea that one should not breed to simply multiply but to come as close as possible to the wild forest cat, who is still living in the Norwegian forest, by choosing the right lines and combinations. So we can contain this fantastic breed…

But, of course, the most important reason is the love we receive from the cats. We enjoy our cats every day, over and over again. We regard none of our cats as a bag of genes, they are all family members. We consider ourselves both lucky and privileged to be in a position to breed these beautiful cats.

Breeding isn't just like a ’normal’ hobby, neither is it a profitable venture. It is a serious responsibility requiring time, dedication and most of all unconditional love. One of the greatest benefits of breeding is watching one of your treasured kittens go to a loving home.

 

Be warned: the day you’ll meet this breed, you’ll understand why we call it ‘an addiction’.

Our goal
Our goal is to breed healthy, strong cats with an excellent temper, based on the best available breeding lines. We pay attention on the external characteristics according to the breeding standard as described by FIFe. But most important of all is the health of our cats and kittens.

Testing
To be sure that we did everything to give the kittens the most healthy start in life, we not only will do everything to make sure that our cats are in great shape, but we also test our cats. Every year they are tested on FeLV and FIV. About HCM, PKD, CIN and GSD-IV we take no unnecessary risk. We test our cats on GSD-IV by DNA. We will test our cats on PKD and CIN as soon as also HCM is useful to test according to their ages. Unfortunately the research for the HCM mutation in Norwegian Forest Cats DNA is progressing slowly.

All white kittens are BAER tested for hearing status before they leave our home.

Out of the forest and into your heart...

Cattery Av Verden is registered by Mundikat (a Dutch chapter of FIFe). We are member of the Interessengemeinschaft NFO im 1. DEKZV e.V. in Germany, Norsk Skovkattering Danmark and Skogkattslingan in Sweden.