Maine Coon vs Ragamuffin

Maine Coons are marketed as a robust, 'naturally healthy' breed, but a lab analysis of thousands of samples found roughly a third of Maine Coons worldwide carry a gene mutation linked to a potentially fatal heart disease, and plenty of kittens are still sold by breeders who have never screened their breeding cats for it.

Ragamuffin breeders lean hard on the phrase 'hybrid vigor' from outcrossing to domestic longhairs, but the breed's own official CFA page still lists the two most serious diseases of the Ragdoll family — hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and polycystic kidney disease — as real risks, so a Ragamuffin kitten needs the same cardiac and kidney health testing in its parents that a Ragdoll does.