genetics

judy miller

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I just got a chance to read the information on genetics, and there is a part that leaves one confused, although it quite good overall.
Under "special effects", describing chinchilla, shaded, and smoke, some information was left out about the smokes, smoke is ALWAYS a non-agouti animal (aa), whereas the chinchilla and shaded patterns are ALWAYS agouti (A_) The way it is stated sounds like CFA information and they are in the dark ages as far as genetics are concerned.
The smoke can further be described as light, medium, or dark. Smokes are self-colored silvers, and should not be listed with chin and shaded patterns. (Although there are also shaded silvers, and chinchilla silvers, also)
Chinchilla and Shadeds are pattern only, silver or not. And difference between these two are in the polygenes that cause the "wide-banding" effect.
Smokes are not caused by any kind of polygenic wide-banding effect. They are simply self silvers.
Judy
 

sandie

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I am still trying to learn all that color stuff. I have been so busy with the holidays that anytime I read about the different colors, it goes in and right back out. I am still trying to figure out the a A codes. I suppose it really isnt a big deal for me because Munchkins can come in every color, but I would really like to learn it. I hope you keep posting stuff like this!!
 
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judy miller

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Thank you, Sandie. My breed, the Siberian, comes in most colors too. I find genetics fascinating. Coat color always interested me when I was a kid, too. When I was raising French Angora rabbits, I wondered why Midnight a black buck, and Silver Mist, a chinchilla doe, had a baby colored like a siamese cat! So I studied rabbit genetics and got the answers, plus a few that weren't in the books. There are some similarities between rabbit color and cat color.
I wrote a couple of articles for my club, stated very simply, the very basics of cat color. If you write to me privately with your address, I can send them to you.
I think it is necessary for a breeder to have the basic understanding, not only to predict color from a particular mating, but also to be able to recognize and define the color of babies born in order to register them correctly.
Judy
 

comradekitties

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Welcome Judy - Judy is a Siberian friend of mine and I am glad she has joined our group. Judy is well versed in the big A's and little a's of gentics - the articles she wrote for our breed club are very simple - although I still have a hard time with them Judy will answer you very simply . You guys wanting to know genetics are in for a real treat. Linda
 
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judy miller

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Linda!
I was wondering when our paths would cross here! Thank you so much for your vote of confidence. I stay awake nights thinking of these things, and why, why, why? I've got a couple of theories that I haven't told anybody about yet.
The thing is, that even if a person doesn't have a real good understand of these things, they might notice something that no one has noticed before. The observations of ordinary people can lead to answers and enlightment. The geneticists could not have gotten any answers if plain ol' folks had not made some real sharp observations.
Judy
 

Anne

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Thanks for the feedback to the article Judy! I was going to ask for such feedback here and you beat me to it


I'm no expert on cat genetics. For this article I've done some reading (you're right - I have relied on the CFA catrgories there!) and tried to make a descriptive article that will help people describe their cats coat colors.

So would you say I should just drop the smoke part out of that article? Should it go under the colors category? As for the shaded and tipped description, you're saying they should be listed as patterns. So that you would describe a cat as a shaded blue, or tipped cream? I know that you can have shaded and tipped tabbies (a combination of two patterns), are there any other coat patterns that can be found along with shaded or tipped patterns? Can you have a shaded bicolor or a shaded colorpoint coat color?

I was trying to make this article simple, so that non-breeders can easily determine their cat's coat color. I need it for the Cat Pages feature coming soon.

Any other comments about the article are welcome! As I said, I'm no expert on ther subject...

link to the article
 
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judy miller

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Just quickly, Anne, as I'm off to the airport today.
But shaded should NOT be used in connection with any solid cat, ie bi, if I'm understanding your meaning of bi to be solid plus white.
Shaded can come with any color of agouti, but most have not been described as it would be senseless, as they look like poorly marked tabbies, which is more or less what they are. The one exception would be the "golden" varieties, which are beautiful and different enough to have been described.
Actually, for a simple article, I would not go into the part of the ticked colorpoints, especially the Siamese. The siamese have always been self/solid cats but they brought in the ticking to prevent a pattern from appearing on the body as the cat aged. Tricky, huh?
Maybe silver should be kept separate, with the "goldens" being an offshoot from it. Catagorizing these things is hard. TICA has done a pretty good job.
Did you write the article? Actually, it is pretty good for a person who claims to have little knowledge!
I'll get back to this later.
Judy
 

sandie

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Do you have an easy breakdown of why what I call natural points come up with the facial and body color, but the feet are usually white? Most of these cats I have seen look so much like the siamese in color, but with white where it shouldnt be. I am also curious as to why the Osicats I have seen never have the siamese colors yet they are siamese and Abby. This is why I am so facinated with colors!!
 
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judy miller

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Sandie,
First of all, I have to add something I said yesterday in my post, when I was in a hurry.
The Siamese were self colored until they developed the lynx pts, and that is why they introduced the ticked pattern, because as the cat aged, the body wouldn't develop tabby markings.
The white markings are caused by the spotting gene and can be found in connections with any color including the colorpoint. There are grades of it, and it always starts on the bottom and works it's way up.
Siamese crossed with abys are not going to show siamese color, unless the aby carries it, as colorpoint is a recessive gene and only shows itself in twos. They have to have two colorpoint genes to be a colorpoint. If they only have one, they are a carrier.
Did I understand your question?
Judy
 

Anne

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What a facsinating subject!

Yes, I wrote that article :eek:... I write all the articles for the site. I don't consider myself an expert on any cat subject and the complicated field of feline genetics certainly requires a great deal of learning and experience.

I'll look into the article later this week and make some changes. I'm not feeling very wel today. Dragged myself out of bed just to update the site and got carried away posting in the forums
. I don't think I'm up to dealing with the colors article right now though
 
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judy miller

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Anne,
Take care of yourself so you get better! There is nothing here that can't wait.
Judy
 

Anne

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Yeah, I guess I better get back into bed. It's nothing serious I think, but I do feel all woozy...
I really enjoy the company in the forums - a real temptation. I wish I had a laptop so that I could be posting right from my bed
 

sandie

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Yes, you understood the question right. I am really facinated by these strange things. What you said makes sense to me. I have a seal point munchkin, who obviously has "defects" in the coloring because she is not siamese. We bred her with a blue and white bi color who carries points. So some of the offspring should have points and some not. I am dying to get your article!!
 

mdsiamese

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Hi! I just found the site and this thread, so forgive
me for posting so long after the last post. But I
wanted to mention a few things. First let me explain
that I'm a CFA Siamese and Colorpoint Shorthair
breeder, have been for about 6 years now.

Sandi asked about cats with feet that are white.
This is the mitted pattern, as in the Birmans. There
is white spotting factor, which is a show fault,
where one toe might be white or something. But when
the whole of all feet are white totally, that's a
special genetic trait that occurs only in the Birman,
Ragdoll, and Snowshoe I think. So in our pointed
breeds, there are a couple different genetic white
traits:

white spotting (bad bad bad, ranges from only a few hairs
being white to a toe being white, or a white chunk
on the tip of the tail, etc.),

mitting (occurs only in certain breeds like the Birman)

total white, like the blue-eyed-white Oriental which
is usually a pointed cat underneath all that white

and pointed and white (a pointed bi-color cat)
which we see in the Ragdolls and Snowshoes. Pointed
and white cats can also be mitted I think. And I
believe TICA recognizes pointed and white in the
Orientals.

Each of these is a different although somewhat
related genetic trait. We're pretty good at
controlling the bottom three. The very much frowned
upon white spotting still pops up occasionally,
I've not ever seen it in my cats though, knocking
on wood.

About the Ocicats and the Siamese/Aby - technically
yes, the Ocicat breed was created by crossing a Siamese
and an Aby, then breeding an offspring to another
Siamese. But that's it. The initial cross involved
two specific Siamese cats, not the whole breed of
Siamese. You can't go out and cross any Siamese with
any Aby and come up with an Ocicat. I have an article
on the creation of the breed if you want more information,
but the gist of the Ocicat breed is the spots which were
being carried by those specific cats used
in the original crosses. I've not ever heard of
any pointed Ocicats still being produced, so I'm
assuming the Ocicat breeders have been pretty
good about getting rid of the recessive pointed
gene in their cats.

I'm not sure I understand something Judy said, "The
Siamese were self colored until they developed the
lynx pts, and that is why they introduced the ticked pattern, because as the cat aged, the body wouldn't
develop tabby markings". The ticked pattern in the
Siamese has been the pattern of choice the entire
life of the breed (over 100 years). I don't recall
it ever specifically being "introduced" around the
time the lynxpoints were created. What did you mean
by "introduced"?

Mary
 

sandie

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Okay, so just because I am stupid still when it comes to all these colors. Here's my thing, I have a munchkin who is a bad "pointed" cat. When I show him, I never know what color to put. He has mostly blue ears, a blue tail, a mink colored body and white on his feet and chest. Theres a picture of him on my site and the cat pages. So what exactly do I put for his color??
 
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judy miller

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I don't know exactly when the ticked pattern was introduced, but there were other breeds that didn't have it. For example the American Bobtail. When the animal aged the stripes started showing up on the body. So it would be to their advantage to introduce the ticked pattern if it wasn't there already.
Also, mitted feet happen in any cat. The Birman breeders and other breeders have done a good job in keeping it where they want it. It is the same spotting gene that causes all the various amounts of white, from barely none to almost all white. Most geneticists do not believe in a "gloving" gene. They think it is the white spotting gene held to the feet, and at that the white can still shows up in other parts of the body.
Judy
 

mdsiamese

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Sandi - each breed has it's own rules on what it
calls different colors. If your Munchkin (what
a cutie from the picture) were an Oriental, the
color would be called "pointed and white". In
the Ragdoll, it would be called bi-color or
a pointed bi-color, I'm not sure which. So it
depends on your association's rules for the Munchkin.

Mary
 

mdsiamese

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I was using Niels Pedersen's Feline Husbandry book
to describe the white genetics. I don't have my
Roy Robinson's Genetics for Cat Breeders handy,
or the updated edition, but I seem to recall three
whites - piebald white, gloving, and solid white -
in there as well.

Mary
 

sandie

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Thank you both, I thought it would be a pointed with white, but because his feet are mitted, it threw me off. In my mind somewhere I was thinking the feet had to be colored to be a pointed. With the munchkin, ALL colors are acceptable as they are domestic cats with the shortning of the forelegs. I actually have 2 munchkins with the points and mitted feet. They are 2 very different colors though.
 
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