I will admit that Chloe is our first non-shorthair cat. We brush her 2-3 times a day and get a handful each time. She has a terrible issue with furballs. :/ If that is a light harvest, I would HATE any other breed.

We feed her a mix of Science Diet mature HairBall and Purina Pro-Plan food. She gets a can of fancy feast once a week; but half the time she ignores it.

Before having Siberians I had regular indoor cats – either from the Humane Society or strays. I fed them regular hard cat food from the grocery store. The shedding from them was mountains more. Often we brush our Siberians and get nothing much – maybe a few stray hairs. During the shedding time we can never get more than a brush full at once. The regular cats could give us more than a brush full every day. So, while this looks like a lot of hair, it’s nothing compared to what you’d get from a regular cat. That could be just a month’s worth of hair for a non-Siberian cat. And from my Yellow Labrador Retriever dog, this is just one day’s worth of hair. We could make a new puppy every week with his hair. My siberians have never had a hairball (my non-Siberians had about one a day). My first Siberian ate Pet Guard Super Premium hard food. I have fed the last 2 Siberians a can of Fancy Feast Classic for breakfast and a snack sized bag of raw chicken for dinner. Maybe that makes a difference?

Even seeing this picture, I’d still say they REALLY hardly shed, but I’ve owned non-Siberian cats before. I think it’s great that you have this on the internet for those researching before purchasing, though.

Every time I visit someone that has a non-Siberian cat I love on them, but it always makes me thankful for my Siberians who shed so much less!

My personal pet peeve is the breeders who say Siberians are hypoallergenic. I encourage everyone to see http://www.siberianresearch.com for more info on allergies and Siberians.They say that about 50% of Siberians have lower levels of the Fel d1 allergen than average cats. (That means that 50% have the same levels as regular cats!) Between 15-20% of Siberians have levels that are low enough for severely allergic people. They also say that Fel d1 is the reason for 60% of people’s allergies to cats.

My husband is allergic to cats. Of our 3 Siberians, 1 seemed to him to be about the same as our old house cats but she did not bother our neighbor’s allergies. 1 was less bothersome to my husband’s allergies. Our current Siberian sleeps on his feet and he has noticed no allergic reaction to her at all. We ran across this page when my daughter was researching Siberians for her 5th Grade Persuasive Essay!