Will an F3 Savannah Cat be larger or look more serval looking than an F8 Savannah Cat?
I have had many inquiring about savannah cats who seem to have this misconception that higher generation means the cat will be larger. Higher generation means they are more closely related to the serval, but not necessarily that they are larger or that they look much more like the serval than a lower generation such as the F8. The quality of the cat does not have anything to do with generation and more to do with selection of quality breeding cats throughout the generations. There are many back yard breeders out there who simply don't care what cats they're pairing together as long as they get kittens, and that's why there are so many poor quality Savannah cats out there. Having said that, F1 seems to be the only consistently large generation of cat, due to the fact that one parent is an actual serval, even with F1's you can get one that's not so big, and if the breeder so chooses to pair a poor quality cat with their serval, you aren't likely to see the best looking F1.
Unless you're purchasing an F1, size is going to vary drastically, no honest breeder can tell you what your cat is going to weigh full grown. An estimated range can be given to give you an idea, but there is so much variation in genetics that your Savannah may end up being 10 lbs, and could end up 25 lbs, you just never know. My Grand Champion Arzaelan is larger than my F3 Oriaku, and my other F7 females are comparable to her in size. I want to stress that generation does not determine size, again, unless you're getting an F1, but you will be paying $15,000 - $20,000 for a quality F1 kitten. Now as far as quality, you need to be sure you've found a breeder who cares about quality; with Savannah's as with any animal and anything in life, you get what you pay for.
Overall quality is much more important to worry about than size, size is going to be out of both yours and the breeders control. I have seen F8's look better than F2's. I asked people to guess what generation one of my F8's were, most people were guessing F2-F3, a couple guessed F4; no one imagined she was an F8. They were very impressed when I posted her actual generation. This is why quality is very important, I can't stress this enough: find a breeder that is very selective with their breeding cats. Can you guess what generation the kitten below is? No cheating!
He is our homebred boy, Leon! His mother is our stunning queen, Wyldflower, who puts amazing wild faces on her kittens! He is an F8 and he is VERY serval like, he's a stunning boy! I wanted to share with you his picture, to show you a good example of what I mean when I stress that generation doesn't really mean much other than how closely related to the serval a savannah kitten is. I urge you to search and look at some of the available F2, F3, and F4 Savannah kittens out there to compare for yourself. I may be partial, but I would assume he looks better than most you could find! His fantastic ears, wild face, stunning spotting, legs for days, hooded eyes; this boy belongs in the show hall and these are the type of Savannah kittens breeders should be striving for. He is living as a pet with his sister being spoiled by his new mama. He is not available but his siblings may be!
Now getting to this point where you have low generation cats like this takes a lot of time, research, knowledge, and effort on the breeders part to develop this type of quality in a low generation Savannah kitten. There are not many out there that have quality low generation cats like this, and I am so thankful for the breeders of my Savannah cats who have worked so hard to achieve this type of quality. I could not be producing such great examples of the Savannah cat breed without their hard work, and I am happy to continue in the journey.
For our currently available kittens, CLICK HERE