A kitten doesn’t come into the world with a ready immune system — it builds one, piece by piece, starting with something as tiny as bacteria. When a kitten is born, it’s a blank slate — sterile, untouched by the outside world. But almost immediately, something beautiful happens. As it nurses, is licked clean, and nestles up against its mother, she shares with it a whole invisible world of microbes. Researchers like Chan et al. (2013) and Zakošek Pipan et al. (2020) have descr

People often like to say, ‘Wow, kittens are so fearless! They watch them darting across the room, leaping on siblings, swatting at a flicker of light on the wall, and they figure — this kitten’s ready for anything. But here’s the truth: what you see on the outside doesn’t tell the whole story. Underneath that playful energy, there’s a brain that’s still working hard to finish wiring itself. It’s busy building the roads, the bridges, the connections that will shape how the ki

We are proud to announce that IconicSX Cattery is home to the first Sphynx cat with a genetically confirmed DBE Celestial gene. O ur Queen Sofia is genetically confirmed  heterozygous N/ DBECEL, one of the safest Dominant Blue Eye (DBE) genes recognised today. This line is the best studied and well known for its genetic health*, making it a cornerstone of our breeding program. The DBE-CEL gene , previously classified under the DBE-Altai group, was officially identified and d