Health testing you can read, not just hear about
A breeder who health-tests can prove it. For the breed you are considering, ask which inherited conditions are screened for and expect named evidence for both parents: official screening certificates where a scheme exists for that condition, and laboratory genetic test reports showing the individual cat's result. You should be allowed to read the documents, note the laboratory and the cat's registered name, and see that the results belong to the actual mother and father of your kitten — not to relatives, and not to the breed in general.
Good breeders offer this paperwork before you think to ask, because testing is expensive and they are proud of it. Vagueness is the warning sign: phrases like vet-checked parents, which usually means a general examination, are not health testing, and a breeder who cannot explain what a result means for the kittens — clear, carrier, or affected, and what the pairing produces — has papers they do not understand.
Underfoot raising you can see for yourself
Health is only half the brief: choose a breeder whose kittens are raised underfoot, in the lived-in rooms of the home. Visit in person — a breeder who will only meet you at a door, a car park, or through video of a single kitten is withholding the most important evidence. In the home, you want kittens in or beside family space, a mother relaxed in your presence, household sounds at normal volume, and the small wear of real life: toys underfoot, a scratching post in use, older cats or a dog moving through if the home has them.
Watch the kittens themselves. Underfoot kittens are bold in familiar surroundings — they investigate a visitor, play through noise, and get handled by the household as part of the day. Ask who handles them and how often, when they first met the wider house, and what new experiences each week brings. A breeder raising underfoot can answer in ordinary detail because the answer is simply their daily life.
Time with mother, contract, and the take-back promise
Responsible breeders keep kittens with their mother and siblings for a full early period — long enough to wean gradually, learn litter and scratching habits from her, and absorb the feline social lessons of the litter. A breeder eager to send kittens out unusually young is optimising for the breeder's convenience at the kitten's expense, and no discount justifies it.
Questions that separate standards from sales talk
Ask how many litters the household raises at once and how many breeding cats live there — numbers that suggest kittens cannot each be handled daily are a problem no paperwork offsets. Ask to see where adults live, not only the kitten room. Ask what food the kittens are weaned onto, what litter they know, and what familiar item comes home with them, because a thoughtful breeder plans the transition, not just the sale.
Bring the records home and keep them together
At collection you should leave with the kitten's vaccination record, microchip details, registration papers, the food and litter the kitten knows, and copies of both parents' health test results. File them as one set from day one: those parental results matter years later if your cat ever develops a condition with a hereditary angle, and they are almost impossible to reconstruct if the breeder later stops breeding. Storing the whole set in KinsLe's Pet Passport keeps your kitten's records together in one portable packet, parental screening included, ready for vet visits and any future handoff.