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RE: Almost Got Breeding (Long Post)
When faced with a mediocre cattery, one option certainly is to 'start over' .. but that can be expensive.
I'd suggest having less of a plan. Or, rather, taking a long view. Take your cats and line them up, males and females. When you're done you want to have exactly one more of one gender than the other. Let them breed willy-nilly. What will happen is the highest-love pairs will make a box, working down the line, over the next week. The following week, since there is ONE MORE of one gender, it will be at 100% long before anyone else so, as soon as last weeks first-producers reach 100%, it will (almost certainly) replace the mate, leaving it to go with the next pair. Over the course of the week, you'll find that most, of not all, pairs have changed partners. Once, again, at the end of the week, you'll have one cat left over. The process will repeat week after week, slowly working through all possible pairs; until your cats age out.
As they approach 121 days, go out on the market and pick up 'better' cats. But some of your boxes will actually be 'better' than the parents .. you can cycle them in, as needed. Keep with the one-more approach for a couple months. In two or three months you'll have a pile of boxes which are not-so mediocre as their parents, and a larger pile of 'yuck' boxes. Send the 'yuck' boxes in to the Menagerie, along with all aged-out parents. Use the proceeds to get more collection cats (you'll be looking at the Christmas and Easter collections), so you'll be picking up new collectible starters, or use the proceeds to help defray your expenses by purchasing food.
Meanwhile, as you cycle in 'better' parents, you can slowly remove pairs from the cycling pile, beginning to line-breed to pull out traits.
If you keep at it, by next year, you'll should have a very good cattery, with a nice smattering of collectible starters and their offspring, and a few lines of 'better' cats you're intentionally working.
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