brown mackerel torbie. would father be orange tabby or brown mackerel tabby?

[diamond]

In an area where I have been helping some friends who do "TNR" there is a black and white mother who has 3 brown mackerel tabby kittens, 1 black and white kitten, and a brown mackerel torbie. All the tabbies have white one feet and chest as well as the torbie.

The torbie at first looks exactly like the other tabby kittens. It seems like a brown mackerel tabby. But when you look closely, it has orange on the feet, little orange patches on the brown tabby markings, and an orange tip on the tail.

We know there is a solid orange tabby Tom as well as a brown mackerel tabby Tom who visit this same area. They are arch enemies and fight all the time. The Brown tabby has just been neutered (way after kittens were already born) but the orange one has been gone for a while. I have a pic of them both right here:

Screenshot_2014-05-06-19-35-58-1.png

• diamond
• Sep 2, 2014

My question is:

Who would be the father of this brown mackeral tabby with orange kitten? Its striped pattern looks just like the brown tabby male but then the orange spots make me wonder if the father is the orange tabby male. Also the fact that the other three tabby kittens are obviously from the brown tabby male originally made me think its was obvious the torbie was as well but because of the orange spots I dont know if thats a good assumption or not.

Im very interested in learning about genetics of cats so that I will know these things for future reference.

Thanks.

 

[GemsGem]

If the mother is black and white this means the red tabby male must be the father of the female torbie.

Red (orange) is a dominant color and can not skip generations - it must come from one parent, so the red tabby must be the father.

Here a little fact for you if you interested in cat genetics

Male kittens always obtain both color genes from the dam (mother). The male offspring in a litter will always be either the color of the dam (or one of the colors in the case of parti-colors) or the dilute form of the dam's color.

Female kittens take one color gene from each parent. The color of the female kittens in a litter will always be either a combination of the sire's and dam's colors, or the dilute form of those colors

 

[diamond]

That is very interesting indeed [emoji]128518[/emoji] I did not know that.

Soo if I understand correctly,if the female torbie has to be the daughter of the male red tabby because of the orange spots, then does that mean the male red tabby can pass on brown tabby markings as well? If not then where the the torbie get those markings from?

Also when u say that the red color cant skip generations, do u mean that for example if the browm tabby has red ancestary he cant pass on those genes since he does not have red himself?

Thanks

 

[GemsGem]

The red tabby male must have passed the tabby pattern on to the kittens.

The brown color came from the mother, as she is black.
Here the confusing part - a brown tabby is actually genetically a black tabby :nod:
We just call them brown tabbies when really they are not - confusing yeah :lol3:

So the brown (black) color came from mother and the tabby pattern came from father.


You are spot on with red being a dominant color and if a parent doesn't show that color, they cannot pass it on to offspring. Even if they have red ancestors themselves.

Red and black are both dominant colors.
Blue and cream are recessive colors.

Dominant colors cannot be carried ( hidden/masked ) if a cat has a dominant color it must be expressed (shown) on the cat.

Recessive colors can be carried so that's why a black cat can have blue offspring etc...

A cat receives two color genes at conception
Males get two from mother
Females get one from mother and one from father

If a cat gets one black and one blue color gene, then the cat will be black ( as black is dominant over blue) but will carry blue gene that it can pass on to offspring.

To be a blue cat the cat needs to receive two blue genes to express it self ( so no black gene to mask it )

Patterns are also dominant and recessive

The tabby pattern is dominant over solid colors
The colorpoint pattern (Siamese cats) is recessive
Shaded and smoke is dominant

So for a cat to show a dominant pattern or color one of its parent must show the dominant color or pattern.

Two recessive patterned or color cats cannot produce a dominant patterned or colored offspring.
So two blue cats can only produce blue offspring, they cannot produce a black kitten.
Same as two solid colored cats cannot produce a tabby offspring.

 

[diamond]

Wow that was such a great explanation of things thank you very much now I understand completely [emoji]128515[/emoji]

It all makes sense now so I guess that little kitten is from the red cat.

Even tho they will be spayed/nuetered, if I am right, that little torbie kitten I was asking about could have produced solid red, calico, or torbie kittens even if it didnt mate with a red male? Example if she mated with a black or a blue male?

Also I got a pic of the kitten in one of the houses we have made for them there is a scratcher in it and I caught it hiding under it [emoji]9786[/emoji]

In this pic you cant see ALL the orange spots but its the only pic I have so far....

Screenshot_2014-09-02-16-28-25-1.png

• diamond
• Sep 3, 2014

 

[kellie roberts]

Fascinating facts GemsGem.  And thanks, as always, for sharing your knowledge.

So that means that both my black, male cats acquired their color from each of their mothers alone

 

[bemba]

Actually the red (ginger) gene is a sex linked recessive colour gene, meaning it's carried on the sex chromosome.... A Ginger female cat will only ever be able to produce ginger kittens if bred to a ginger male and if bred to any other colour male she can still only breed tortoiseshell girls and ginger boys. Ginger boys always breed tortoiseshell daughters too.