The Iris Polaires journal
The arrivals, the progress, the behind-the-scenes — what really happens at our home, month after month. Daily life can be followed in photos and videos on Instagram ↗ and Facebook ↗; this page keeps the record, in calendar order. An RSS feed (in French) is available to follow new entries.
Bijou tested in turn: the pair is A/A on both sides
Three days after Brontë, Bijou’s genetic panel is back. Same laboratory, same panel, same verdict: forty-nine diseases screened, none found. Neither affected nor a carrier — including for the Ragdoll HCM mutation and PKD. Both our breeding cats are now screened on their own DNA, not on their parents’.
The result that matters most reads as a pair. Bijou is blood type A/A, and so is Brontë: neither carries the b allele. Their kittens can therefore be neither group B nor carriers, and neonatal isoerythrolysis — the one that takes whole litters within the first forty-eight hours — is entirely out of reach for this pair. It is the screening nobody mentions in an advert; it is done, and it is verifiable.
The test also says what this mating will not produce. Bijou carries neither chocolate nor dilution — he has no colour recessive at all. Brontë’s two alleles therefore cannot show: no chocolate kitten, no blue kitten in their litters, even though half of them will carry one invisibly. For blue bicolour, we will need a different partner. His genetic diversity is 34 %, average for the breed, as are Brontë’s 35 %.
The full detail is on the Health page, the laboratory report is freely viewable ↗, and the link now sits on his profile, next to his pedigree — where you will also find the photo above, taken this week. The echocardiogram still comes before any breeding: a genetic test alone does not rule out HCM. ❄
Forty-nine diseases screened in Brontë, none found
Brontë’s genetic panel is back. Forty-nine diseases screened, including the Ragdoll HCM mutation and PKD: none. Neither affected nor a carrier. Both her parents were tested N/N, but a cat’s genetics cannot be deduced from its parents’ — it has to be verified, and now it has been.
The panel does not stop at the two mutations everyone quotes. It also covers Maine Coon HCM, pyruvate kinase deficiency, mucopolysaccharidosis types I, VI and VII, cystinuria, haemophilia B and MDR1 drug sensitivity. Forty-nine lines, forty-nine times “clear”.
The test also settles a question we had left open, in writing, on the Health page: her blood group. Her dam told us she could not be group B, without telling us whether she carried it. She is A/A — not even a carrier. Add to that a genetic diversity of 35 %, average for the breed. Her two recessive alleles are confirmed exactly as the pedigree predicted: carries chocolate from her sire, carries dilution from her blue dam.
Those two recessives are not a flaw, they are a reserve. With the right partner they can produce chocolate or blue. But the male has to carry the same allele: otherwise nothing shows, and half the kittens become carriers in their turn, invisibly. That is exactly why you test before pairing, not after.
The full detail is on the Health page, and the laboratory report is freely viewable ↗ — the link now sits on her profile, next to her pedigree. Bijou is next, and the echocardiogram comes before any breeding: a genetic test alone does not rule out HCM. ❄
The litter comparison goes to nine — and changes its leader
Two newcomers, and a ranking upset. The Carbonite takes first place, ahead of the Fleur de Litière that had held it from the start — same brand, the range below: clumps just as firm, better odour control, and close to half the price per litre. We put it in expecting a downgraded product. That is not what we found, and it is what fills our trays today.
The other newcomer had been announced on that page since the summer: the plant-based tofu litter. The trial is done, and it disappoints. No bad smell, little dust — but urine does not form a block, it makes a paste that sticks to the bottom of the tray and has to be scraped off. On a product whose first packaging claim is “fast clumping”, that is precisely the promise missing. It will not be bought again.
Nine litters, then, all bought and used in our own trays, ranked from the one we keep to the one we rule out, with prices per litre and per kilo — because either one alone means nothing. It is all in the litter comparison. ❄
Fifty, then seventy: it was the English version
On 19 August we wrote here that the next milestones would be told in this journal. Both have now passed: fifty clicks in twenty-eight days on 27 August, seventy on 4 September. Twenty, fifty, seventy — in three weeks.
The number matters less than the window it covers. The twenty-click window closed on 17 August, so before the English version. The seventy-click window runs from 8 August to 4 September: it straddles the day it went live. It is the thirty-four translated pages that made the difference, and nothing else.
One qualification, because a rising counter does not tell the whole story: in the 26 August export, nearly 69 % of impressions came from outside France and did not turn into a click. A reader in the Netherlands will not come and adopt a kitten in Peyrelevade. More clicks does not yet mean more future adopters, and the next milestone that will really interest us is not a hundred: it is the day we know where these visits actually come from. ❄
The cattery has moved: here we are in Peyrelevade
On 1 September, everyone changed houses. Six rooms, a hundred and eighty square metres, beams a good deal older than we are, and the plateau de Millevaches through the windows. The page A cattery in Corrèze already described this setting; it is now properly ours.
The same routine for the three cats and for April: one room first, the rest afterwards, at their own pace. Brontë resumed the methodical inspection she had begun on arriving in July, room by room, whiskers first. Aranel picked her observation post before the boxes were even open. Bijou looked up and found the beams.
What it changes, and it is the only point that matters for what comes next: room. Spaces that can be given a purpose, height to climb, volume enough for everyone to avoid everyone else when they feel like it. Our first litters are expected in 2027 — they will grow up here. ❄
Twenty clicks in twenty-eight days: Google has found us
A little note from Google arrived this week: 20 clicks in 28 days. Not impressions — clicks: twenty people saw the site in their search results and chose to come in. And the telling detail is the window: it closes on 17 August, which is to say almost entirely before the English version arrived. That score belongs to the French site alone, in its very first weeks, without a single advert.
In the meantime the site has doubled in size: a complete English version — thirty-four pages translated, search included —, a sixth cat litter put through our real trays, and a fourth comparison devoted to probiotics, where the real lesson is how to read a label. Everything has been submitted for indexing; the coming weeks’ counters will tell the rest.
What we like about this order of things: our first litters are planned for 2027, and the site is already building its audience before a single kitten is here. The next milestones — fifty, a hundred — will be told here. ❄
The site gets a facelift — and the world starts finding it
A grand finishing pass: our crest has been redrawn, finer and crisper, and rolled out everywhere — header, favicon, icons and share previews. The Adopt a kitten page now opens on a soft banner illustration inspired by Brontë, and the site’s dressing is complete: a golden arabesque atop the big blocks, a snowflake signing the page ends, and a full verification pass on mobile.
Backstage, a lovely surprise: since the site has been properly indexed, it appears in Google searches mostly in France, but also in Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, and as far as the United States, Madagascar and Ecuador. These are only the very beginnings, but it is already heartening.
The French version is nearly finished; the next big project will be its full English translation — the very pages you are reading. And a big thank-you to Claude, Anthropic’s AI with whom this site is written four-handed — the behind-the-scenes story is on Why this site. The price page, meanwhile, refocuses on adopters: the breeding part now lives on its own page, and its densest passages unfold on demand.
The site gets simpler
A tidy-up: the “Explore further” menu now counts only four entries, each opening onto a clear overview — including two new pages, Before you adopt and Our comparisons.
The Adopt a kitten page was lightened in the same movement: the commitment-and-knowledge certificate, first step of every adoption, is now highlighted right at the top, and everything concerning future breeders has moved to its own page, Breeding kittens. The practical process — steps, prices, reservation, departure kit — now lives on a dedicated page, The adoption process. And for the final touch, a golden arabesque now crowns the site’s big blocks and a snowflake signs the page ends — a more polished dressing, matched to our world.
The site grows
This journal opens its pages — it will keep the record of what happens at the cattery, between two posts on our networks. In the same movement, the page on the price of a Ragdoll has filled out (down payments, couriers, waiting lists: what is normal and what is not), and the litter comparison gains our real-condition observations on corn litter.
As always: if you spot a mistake or a dead link, write to us.
The automatic litter box finds a second use
A brand-new automatic litter box, carefully installed, switched on… and adopted within thirty seconds by Bijou — as a bed. It seems the padded globe has the look of a high-end basket.
Rest assured, it also serves the purpose it was bought for. From time to time. And it let us put several litters to the test in real conditions: the result is in our litter comparison.
Brontë has arrived
See her profile →
Echo de Narcisse Brontë left her birth cattery and set her paws down at our home in late July. The journey went well, and so did the exploration of the house — methodical, room by room, whiskers first.
Our little seal tabby point bicolour completes our duo of future breeding cats alongside Bijou. Her profile, her pedigree and her photos: this way.
Brontë, week after week
Before her arrival, her breeder sent us photos all through her growth — and we made them into a slideshow published on our Instagram ↗: from two weeks to nearly thirteen, the mask drawing itself in, the ears underlining themselves with tabby, the blue of the eyes settling.
Several of those photos now illustrate, age by age, our page on kitten development.
Bijou, our new little gem
See his profile →
We introduced Royaume d’Élégance Bijou on our networks in June: a young seal bicolour male with an almost perfect inverted-V mask, chosen as much for his type as for his temperament — calm, confident, disarmingly gentle.
Since then, he has made himself at home: every new object in the house is first assessed as a potential bed. His full profile, pedigree included: Royaume d’Élégance Bijou.
Daily life, live
Between two journal entries, the photos and videos of daily life go up on our networks — that is where everything lands first.