Kitten breed?

[staceyrenee]

Hi I'm new to the site I have been looking all over to fine out my kittens breed but she has the characteristics and features of a few different breeds. I got her as a rescue kitten at only 6 or 7 weeks old, the owners had left her in a box outside I took her and her brother now she is 9 months and happy and healthy but now i would like to find out more about her.

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• staceyrenee
• Jul 25, 2013

 

[staceyrenee]

Her as a baby

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• staceyrenee
• Jul 25, 2013

 

[StefanZ]

Wow, what a nice spots!   Our main suspects will be two breeds;  bengal or ocicat (of pet quality but anyway)  or a domestic who is spotted - not so unusual!

I will ask a mod to move this your thread to our  Description - what a cat do I have?  subforum.

And I want to beg you to send in a couple of better photos.  Without good photos it is almost meaningsless to give opinions which are more than wild quesses.

Welcome to our Forums!

  Good luck!

 

[staceyrenee]

Thank you for your reply I will try to put more pictures up

 

[staceyrenee]

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• staceyrenee
• Jul 25, 2013

pattern

 

[staceyrenee]

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• staceyrenee
• Jul 25, 2013

she is on the right her brother is on the left, she is black cream and has a red/orange hue

 

[staceyrenee]

Aren't the ocicats usually shot hair? Heidi has very long hair and a bushy bushy tail

 

[staceyrenee]

I was thinking Bengal or sivanah ?

 

[StefanZ]

Aren't the ocicats usually shot hair? Heidi has very long hair and a bushy bushy tail

both oci and bengals are shorthair, and I think savannah too...

So the most probable she is a longhaired domestic with rather dramatic spots.  How is her face, Does she has the typical  M above her eyes, as all tabbies has?

but of course, if there comes an incidental longhaired Oci, Bengal or Savannah, it will be worthless for the breeder, and he may try to be off the kittens in easiest possible way.  If they will not be pts, so he will sell them cheaply.

A responsible breeder sells or gives them to someone who he knows is a good home.

A not responsible breeder, like BYB, just sells them anywhere, as long they dont ask too many questions...

 

[staceyrenee]

I don't want to sell her and yes she has the m above her eyes and a mask on the sides, I know she is not a purebred or anything so she can't have a proper breed I just wanted to find the closest thing to her so I can look up any special needs

 

[zyde]

i was thinking a mix of bengal and savannah?

 

[maewkaew]

 Some beautiful Brown Spotted Tabby  domestic  ( aka "moggy")  kittens of no particular breed.

  The extra photos were helpful 

Cats are not like dogs that are usually a specific breed or mix of breeds.  The vast majority of cats have just bred randomly on their own without human selective breeding,  and they have a mix of ancestry from the general cat population in their part of the world --  mostly or entirely other random-bred cats,   not cats bred by breeders. 

These random-bred cats come in many  colors and patterns, shapes, coat lengths etc.  and they are called "Domestic Shorthair " or "Domestic Longhair"  which just means no particular breed  /unknown ancestry. 

 They're also affectionately known as "moggies"  ( a term that started in the UK).

    People often think if they find a spotted tabby cat, that it must be some specific breed that was bred to look like that --  and often think the spots mean it must be an exotic hybrid, partly some wild cat species.   But this is a pattern also seen in domestic cats of no particular breed.  That's how it got into domestic breeds 

 It looks like they have the gene for mackerel tabby  -- the kind with the vertical stripes on their sides .   but then they also have another gene, for spotted tabby,  that makes it break up into spots instead of stripes.  

Stefan,  I'm sure from those additional photos,  you can now tell she's not a Bengal or Ocicat    

stacyrenee, you made a good point that Ocicats have short coats.   But the same thing is true of Bengals and Savannahs.    They have short,   close lying coats.     It is true that there are people crossing all sorts of things to those breeds and they could produce a longer haired kitten.    But I just do not  see any sign of exotic hybrid  in these kittens.   

And it would be extremely unlikely that  if someone had a litter of  6 or 7 week old Bengal  or Savannah  kittens,  they would just abandon them in a box rather than sell them.  Even if they were the sort of person who didn't care about the kittens,  people usually care about their own pocket , and that would be like throwing out hundreds or thousands of dollars. 

It's the poor lovely moggy kittens who get dumped like that.    Luckily for Heidi and her bro  you came along and saved them! 

  The coat lengths seem right on the border of shorthair and longhair --  the sort of coat that people sometimes call "medium hair" , although,  in terms of major genes,  cats are either shorthair or longhair . but within each of those, there is a range of length.

  From what I can see in these photos, looks like Heidi's fur is longer than her brother's?  

They might both be in the shorthair category,  but with coats on the longer end of the range for shorthairs, and also a good deal of undercoat that makes the fur stand out more ,  giving them a more "plush" coat.  ) 

But Heidi could be a semi-longhair  and  is just in summer coat....     

Just how long are the hairs?  If over 2 inches,  that must be  longhair.  ( If so,  would be semi-longhair,  not extremely longhair like a Persian)  

 

[StefanZ]

I don't want to sell her and yes she has the m above her eyes and a mask on the sides, I know she is not a purebred or anything so she can't have a proper breed I just wanted to find the closest thing to her so I can look up any special needs

I wrote about a BYB breeder getting rid of unwished kittens, to explain why it may perhaps be possible to find purebred young kittens at a random place.  Which normally just doesnt happen.  Adult cats may get astray. Or their owner got broke, or died, but you will seldom or never find loose good quality purebred kittens on the street.

YOU are the lucky finder / owner, I understand you dont want to sell.    

So the M is there, which reveals her: Just what we expected: A tabby with somewhat unusual and dramatic broken stripes, which makes them look alike spots. Not common, even rare, but not totally unique either, although quite dramatic here.

So the description and patterns could be something like: Domestic long hair,  the pattern: "broken mackerel tabby with white".   [edit: I see Maew calls them even for spotted - OK, take that bid, I would!     ]

Mackerel are the tabby-stripes, broken = they are broken up, and many will appear like spots.

Good luck!

 

[maewkaew]

  I don't think they're a mix of Bengal and Savannah either .  not unless there is a lot of something else mixed in.  

We did have  on here recently,  a cat from a shelter.  The shelter labeled the cat as Bengal,    I thought it was a mix of Savannah and Bengal  and the owner then reclaimed the cat saying it was a Savannah.   but I still bet it was part Bengal.   and I think Cat Person , who has a lot of experience with exotic hybrids and pure exotics,  agreed.  Here is how that cat looked ,  so you can see for comparison:  http://www.thecatsite.com/t/261247/is-it-a-bengal

In the first photo of Heidi I was not sure.... she looked maybe closer to the look of that cat.   Anyway,  from just that and the baby picture, I could see why Stefan did mention those breeds , even though in reality it would be so rare to find purebred young kittens dumped.  

but then with the additional photos , I could see she really  looked more like   at least predominantly Western domestic cat ancestry.      There are spotted cats from lots of places.  Hey there are spotted tabby British Shorthairs!   and I have seen drawings of spotted cats in England in the 1800s.  

 So it doesnt mean a cat is partly a wild species, or a breed that always comes in a spotted pattern (like Ocicat).  It's just a bit unusual compared to the more common tabby patterns.   

Stefan,  I would  not argue  much against  your bid of  broken mackerel, either.          You may be right.    it can be hard sometimes to tell the difference.   

but the markings do look broken up enough that I think the cat might get described as Spotted Tabby if she were shown as a Household Pet at a cat show.  

They are such attractive cats!    It's interesting that Heidi looks bigger than her brother!   Usually the males tend to be bigger.    or even if the girls are bigger when they are babies,  the boys usually catch up and surpass them so maybe he is just taking his time.   

For cat care, since you don't know their ancestry ,  I would just look for general cat info which to be honest is what applies to most cats anyway.  There is a lot of info on this site and forum.

  or fabcats has some great articles.  (  they have changed their name now to International Cat Care )  http://www.icatcare.org/advice/advice-centre

There's a US vet who has a website with a lot of good information on nutrition . http://www.catinfo.org      

Thank you Staceyrenee for taking in these lovely kittens and caring so much about them!   

 

[staceyrenee]

Yes Heidi the sister is much bigger than her brother and she has incredible hair compared to any of my cats, I will have to measure it though, she is only 9 months and is bigger than both my year and a half mum and ginger torties

 

[staceyrenee]

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• staceyrenee
• Jul 25, 2013

the hair over the ears should help tell shouldn't it?

 

[staceyrenee]

She has two lengths of hair most is about 5 cm long the longest is about 9 cm and her face is about 2 cm

 

[staceyrenee]

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• staceyrenee
• Jul 25, 2013

 

[staceyrenee]

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• staceyrenee
• Jul 25, 2013

 

[staceyrenee]

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• staceyrenee
• Jul 25, 2013