A man who wants to find a cat that looks like its deceased pet has raised 185 felines in four years.

The cats’ owner identified as Mr. Zhou, 34, is from the city of Xi’an, the capital of the Chinese province of Shaanxi.

In 2019 he bought a Ragdoll cat with which he had a particularly deep relationship.

He said: “From the first day I took it home to the day before its death, it was never separated from me.”

He even bought 18 other cats to accompany the now-deceased cat, but the animal died a year later of a heart attack, and since then, the man has been trying to find a lookalike.

However, he could not find one after looking at over a hundred cats and decided to start raising them.

Currently, Mr. Zhou, who said he has liked cats since he was a child, has raised 185 cats, of which 130 are Ragdoll cats.

He told local media: “I keep 54 of them at home, and the rest are kept in the company, employees’ homes, and my hometown”.

“I have 340 square metres at home, which should be enough for these cats to live in.”

One of the videos shared on Douyin, which is a Chinese version of TikTok, shows over a dozen dressed cats in a room while in the other they are seen enjoying their food.

Mr. Zhou reportedly spends CNY 70,000 (GBP 7,800) a month to hire four cat sitters and two family doctors to take care of the 54 cats at home.

His wife also has a dog at home, which lives with the cats.