F5 Savannah Cat

Although considerably removed from the wild ancestry, sharing your home with an F5 Savannah cat is still a fun and rewarding experience.  Once again, there is considerable overlap between the F3, F4 and F5 Savannah cats in terms of size, body type and personality.

Size of an F5 Savannah Cat

Like the F3’s and F4’s, the F5 females will fall in a 10-12 pound range and measure slightly larger than a typical domestic cat.  They will be taller and lankier in their body type.  Most F5 males will fall in a 14-18 pound range.  At Select Exotics, we do have a few lines that consistently throws substantial size, producing males that will mature to be in a 20-25 pound range.

Again, like the F3’s and F4’s, F5 Savannah cats will tend to vary in terms of their body type.  Some will maintain the leg length, refined head and body type of the Serval, while others will lean more towards the domestic heritage and be more compact in their build.  Also, like with the F3’s and F4’s, this variation lessens with each thoughtful generation of breeding in the background.  In time, this variation should become negligible.  Also unique to Select Exotics, we see a boost in substance in these F5 males, compared to the F4 male.  They maintain the stouter structure and features, more like what our F2 males possess.

F5 Savannah Cats Have Just a Touch of Wild Serval

The percentage of wild blood in the F5 Savannah cat can vary from 3.125% on the low end to upwards of 12% on the high end.  If a line were outcrossed to domestic blood all the way from the first generation the resulting offspring would be 3.125%.  If the females were bred back to Savannah males each generation the amount of Serval blood would be in the 10-12% range.  It is to be expecting that an F5 with 3.125% Serval blood in it will not maintain the look, size or coloration as well as an F5 with 10-12% Serval blood.

Personality in the F5 Savannah cats is solid.  They are comfortable in most any home environment and easily adaptable to change.  Most hardly know a stranger and will interact with anyone fairly quickly.  There will always be the outlier in any generation that is more or less social than is expected for that generation, but in most cases buyers can ‘stab in the dark’ in terms of personality when choosing an F3, F4 or F5 Savannah cat.

At Select Exotics we breed very few F5 litters.  It is only when we are wanting to produce a male from a new genetic line to use in our own breeding or if we are breeding a litter for a client that has already purchased breeding females from Select Exotics.  Because of this the availability is very limited and the males are only placed into breeding homes.