Anyone Have a Serval Cat?

My mom had one a few years back, named Diva:) She was absolutely beautiful! I'll post a picture on here, she's laying in my daughter's bouncy chair. 7633 That being said, I hated her. Now, I'm not too familiar with the species as a whole or if it was just related to my mom's cat, but this is just what I saw when I'd go to mom's house. She was definitely a one person cat. Think she preferred my mom, but she liked my dad, but mom was her preferred one-maybe because mom had to bottle feed her when she first got her(?). When my daughter was a baby and we'd stop by, she would contantly snag my daughter's pacifier-right from her mouth, or bottles and chew the nipples off. Again, probably a throw back to her being bottle fed, but had to keep a close eye on her around the baby. That's not so unusual I guess. I don't know if my mom had her spayed or not, she's kind of stupid and naive when it comes to fixing her animals. She ends up seeing dollar signs at potential breeding possibilities for all her animals-pisses me off. But, I think the cat was marking in the house. She did use a litter box though. She needed a special diet, not sure exactly what it was, a little bit of cat food, but also stuff like chicken because they are carniverous and require a higher protein then regular house cats. That had to be fed daily. I do believe they come declawed from the breeders. I'm not a fan of declawing cats, but from what I've seen/read, these cats MUST be declawed. Think my mom's was about 40-50 lbs. She was very tall and lean. She played with the other cats and the dogs. Like I said, she was beautiful, but just very standoffish to me or others that weren't normally in the house. She'd let me pet her, but just not very loving to me. Which, really bugged me because I'm an animal lover lol. My mom had left a window open with a screen on it, it was only open a few inches. Well, Diva pushed the screen out and escaped. She's been gone ever since. So, not sure if she ended up killed because she couldn't defend herself, or some idiot by my mom's house-it was a rural area lots of hunters and not so smart people lol. Or, the vet said she could take up with a bob cat and actually breed with them. So, if you're in middle Tn and see a really weird looking bob cat..... Do more research on them though. They can be a really neat pet, but they do require a bit more care then regular cats. Also find out if a regular vet will see them, or do you need to see an exotic vet, and what's that going to cost to go in for a check up or emergency. Make sure you find a good breeder that would be willing to take it back if it doesn't work out for whatever reason as well. I know my mom's tossing around the idea of getting another one....I just shook my head, and told her to try a male one instead lol. I personally have better luck with my male animals, they dont' seem to have attitude problems. Not sure if that'd be the case with servals though. Also look into Savannahs and compare them to the servals. They're a serval crossed with a regular cat. They sell them in different generations, so the further on in generations, the more "cat like" it'll be as opposed to "serval like", a first generation would have stronger traits of a serval, etc. Not sure how much any of that helped, like I said, it was mom's cat not mine so not much first hand info to offer. Good luck!