Keeping a serval at home is quite a hassle. Today, there are not many nurseries where servals or their hybrids are bred for home keeping. And the cost of a serval kitten at 2-3 months of age ranges from 12000 to 15000 US dollars, depending on the cattery and country of breeding. Serval price in rubles 900-000.
Therefore, not everyone can afford to buy such a pet. And this is probably for the best. After all, on the maintenance of such a miniature leopard, you will need to spend quite large amounts of money every month. Starting from buying food and ending with various vaccinations, grooming, etc.
Therefore, if you nevertheless decide to get yourself a domestic leopard – a serval – we advise you to carefully read the conditions of its keeping.
Living environment and life expectancy
Serval is, after all, a wild animal, albeit tamed. He loves freedom, a lot of air and the presence of a pool or any other body of water where you can splash. Therefore, it is worth starting a serval only when you can provide him with all these living conditions every day, that is, when you yourself live not in a two-room Khrushchev, but in a private house with a large garden, or in a very large apartment, 150 meters 200, with a large bathroom. Only then can a healthy and strong animal be raised from a small serval kitten, which will certainly delight its owners for another 18-20 years (this is how many servals live on average).
Food
Servals feed on meat. In free conditions – by small rodents and poultry, at home – by chicken, beef, and even pork. Everything, naturally, raw and fresh. Sometimes you need to give various supplements in the form of green weed.
It is also recommended to walk the servals outside the city in the field or in the forest. There they will be able to hunt mice or lizards to their heart’s content.
Behavior
Serval is a friendly animal, can safely play with small children, but loves to jump and run, as well as attack as a joke. Therefore, we advise you not to leave very young children alone with the serval for a long time, so that he, by chance, does not hurt the baby.
Servals are also big fans of swimming in a pond. Therefore, always take it with you to the beach, preferably not very crowded and certainly not public. In order not to frighten people with a wild kind of animal, about the nature of which they know nothing.
Servals are also night hunters, so get used to the special bursts of activity of your pet in the evening and at night.
Otherwise, the Serval behaves not so much like a cat as like an obedient dog. You can even train him a little. The serval does not mind being walked on a leash, he loves to bring the owner an abandoned stick. And also lie at his feet when he is tired and wants to rest.
Serval care
Basically, a serval should be looked after in the same way as a purebred cat. Take to your vet regularly. Wash the coat with special shampoos for elite breeds of cats, clean the ears, do preventive vaccinations. If you purchased just a serval, and not any hybrid (for example, a savannah), then attention to yourself, like a real single cat, he will require at a minimum (excluding, of course, children’s age, when you, in fact, replace his mother). But serval hybrids (a mixture of serval with domestic cats) love to be given as much attention as possible, as a true regal person.