lots of pics kittens and momma

[thefiresidecat]

Aww, they look like they are doing well! I'm glad the Vet said they are healthy. Definitely work on brushing while they're little; I have a big orange who is longhaired mostly on his abdomen and tail, but he's a handful when he doesn't want to be brushed!

I do have just a couple of comments regarding your previous post.

First, smoke and silver are caused by the same inhibitor gene in cats. In tabby cats (like a lynx point) they will be considered a silver; in solid-colored cats, they will be a smoke. The gene affects tabbies and solids differently, but in both you will usually have a much lighter hair shaft base than in their fully-colored counterparts. I would say to give it about a year before trying to call the final color on any pointed cat; mine changed DRAMATICALLY in the first year, and my silver/cameo changed the most out of all of my cats. Silver and colorpoint seem to interact a lot, so the development of the final color is very unpredictable and can change several times. Also, colorpoint fur changes to be lighter in color in the heat, so if the kittens are in a warmer environment than they were before, they may start to lighten up. I believe if they are more active and keep their body temperature warmer on average, they may also lighten up slightly. Just something to keep in mind. Also, if your colorpoint needs to be shaved for surgery/etc. the hair might temporarily grow back much darker than the rest of the coat. It should eventually even back out, but it's something that can happen.

Second, and I'm sure you may already know this, but I would be remiss not to say it, the vast majority of cats have no particular breed heritage. It's not an impossibility, but it's extremely unlikely to happen. That being said, tests like BasePaws aren't really to test for "heritage" so much as "similarity" to particular breeds, and that distinction is very important. What they usually indicate is a set of features or genes that your cat shares with purebred cats, regardless of the actual ancestry or parentage of your cat. I would use them as a fun thing to do or a way to screen for a handful of genetic diseases that you could bring up with your vet if they come back positive; it is not good for determining an actual "breed" for your cats.

For one example, I did BasePaws on two of my three cats. I know they are street cats from the Southeast USA, so I'm confident that they are not from purebred ancestors, at least not within recent generations. They do share many features with certain purebred breeds, but they are moggies. My big orange male is on the larger side and has a coat a bit like a Maine Coon, and his BasePaws showed a good amount of similarity between his genetics and those of a MC, but he is NOT a Maine Coon, and I wouldn't want to label him as such even though he shares a good bit of his traits with them. He doesn't have the MC head or lynx tips on his ears.

For another related example, my beautiful silver/cameo lynxpoint (who was also a feral street kitten) came back as having Savannah of all things in her! I think this goes back to the founding of the Savannah breed, which was founded by combining a Serval with a Siamese cat. I don't think my cat actually has any Savannah/Serval blood, but I do think her colorpoint coat shows that she may have some Siamese blood a LONG time ago, so she comes back in tests as Savannah.

I know many people on here don't care for BasePaws at all, and I definitely understand where they are coming from. That same lynxpoint female originally came back as being NOT colorpoint at all in their tests, which she clearly is. I do have to hand it to BasePaws, I checked her results a few months later and they had updated their database and now correctly identified her as being a colorpoint, so I can attest that they do continue to make their reports better with time. Because of this, I am OK with recommending BasePaws tests to people, as long as they know not to consider the breed similarity report as gospel and know that they should check back in on their reports periodically to see if they have been updated. Their databases are still being refined, and that's a good thing; it means they are still trying to learn how to be more accurate.

As I said, I expect that you probably already know this, but just in case, I thought I should share my experience with BasePaws here for you and for anyone else wondering about them.

Also... cat tax of the mentioned kitties:
Not-a-MC “Cairo”
(Big orange)
View attachment 451599
Definitely-not-a-Savannah “Delphi”
(Silver and cameo patched spotted lynx point with white)
View attachment 451598
Oh, and that fur thing you mentioned does happen with her, too, so your lynx point might have silver as well.
View attachment 451601

i love before and after you have baby delphi pics?

 

[LunarFlower]

eh unless you are a breeder it's always for fun. we still love our kitties regardless of what they are) and the mc might not be so far off. it is a natural breed. while the ears of your kitty are wrong I do see the profile there. both gorgeous kitties the savannah thing.. again in small percentages not crazy imo. it's the same thing with the Neanderthal and Denisovan dna in humans. (i'd reckon anyway) the savannah probably shares some ancient ancestor with a big cat that is also shared with the modern housecat. I think almost all cats come back with something between 1 and 5 percent of one of the wild cats.

if you are on the eastern seaboard i'd expect a lot of cats to come back with the mc. same with the ragdoll on the west coast. it was basically a bunch of moggies with certain characteristics the breeder wanted in their kittens. so it makes sense that you'd find a lot of that represented in the wider pools of population doesn't it? to me, I do see regional differences in the average moggy still. (i'm thinking seaboard here more than inland) we have a high concentration of colourpoints in oregon especially but washington too and a high concentration of long hairs with forest cat features but not maine coon. more norwegian and sib and the ragdoll seems like it's highly represented as well. not because of the breeding of actual ragdolls I'd imagine but because breeding was taken from moggies of the region. (nocal is also pacific nw) I haven't done any studies on this and I don't think there have been any studies on this but it would be really interesting to see documation of cat populations before it's too diluted from high population and shipping of cats all over the states. i'm sure the big cities are already past that point. but we did have a lot of immigration and visitation to this area by the russians and asian fleets in the 1700's and 1800s and they all had cats on the ship. a colony of cats is on antartica from just two cats on one of the explorer ships so you can imagine how that would go in a easily populated area like the pacific north west. and we had a lot of norwegians and swedes here in the mid 1800's. have to imagine their favorite moggies made the trip with them as well.

I also think it's not too crazy to think there are a lot of moggies that have relations to actual purebreds. while breeders always say neuter and spay a lot don't actually enforce it other than not giving papers until it's done. there are a LOT of backyard breeders out there. so yeah you're not going to be able to breed a cat and give papers with it.. you could say eh spaying and neutering is mean and then let your cat out every night and all of a sudden there are hundreds of babies out there with that cats dna. neither of my purebreds came spayed/neutered. I had to do it myself. well I mean.. I didn't pull out the scalpel.. but take em to the vet. heh

You said that better than I did, haha! I agree, that most cats come from imported populations originally, and that's exactly what I meant when I said they share similarity rather than direct heritage.

I suspect my boy had at least one ancestor from the northeast where there tend to be a lot more MC cats; my pet theory is that he is probably a descendent of someone's beloved longhaired cat that either got thrown out or lost or escaped from home to free-breed. His tests (as unreliable as they can be) did show that he has at least one copy of almost EVERY long-hair modifying gene, which was quite a few different genes from several different longhair breeds... I suspect his ancestor's owners were just breeding longhaired cat to longhaired cat without any particular breed in mind, just going for what looked good to them. It would be hard to get that many trait related genes randomly (though possible).

As for my girl, I am very suspicious that several generations ago there was a Siamese backyard breeder in my neighborhood who either let their males outside to free-breed or otherwise let their kittens get out into the local population. Over half of the feral cats in my area are colorpoint, and that is highly unlikely to happen (since colorpoint is recessive) unless there was a heavy colorpoint source several generations back and a lot of likely inbreeding. I definitely know that oops kittens do happen to breeders, especially if they have Toms who are always trying to sneak out to breed with neighborhood ladies. I try to keep my definitions of my cats reasonable, however. Even though they are colorpointed, I wouldn't call my girls Siamese; there is too much "other" in there to pick any particular breed.

I do agree with your theory on Norwegian type cats being in areas with a lot of Norwegian immigration; even if they aren't from "papered" cats, the genes are still heavy in that gene pool. There are definitely regional trends in cat populations.

 

[LunarFlower]

i love before and after you have baby delphi pics?

Ooh, yes! I have baby pics of all my stray rescue babies!

Sydney:


Delphi:


Cairo:



And a few extras because they’re cute

 

[thefiresidecat]

Ooh, yes! I have baby pics of all my stray rescue babies!

Sydney:
View attachment 451604
View attachment 451608
Delphi:
View attachment 451609
View attachment 451610
Cairo:
View attachment 451612
View attachment 451614

And a few extras because they’re cute
View attachment 451616
View attachment 451615
View attachment 451617
View attachment 451618
View attachment 451619

wow some dramatic changes there all beautiful babies. those two are def best buds sydney has some DEF siamese going on there. that profile! love the harlequin on delphi too.

 

[thefiresidecat]

i just got a good profile pic of her. back to sib lol. or maybe ragdoll?

 

[thefiresidecat]

updating this thread with some 7 month old pics ( next week 7 month anyway lol) her coat is very pretty very dramatic. one of the pics shows back feet. velvety black on the bottom and golden with silver tones on the top part. the reddish bits are dark at the base. like 1/4 grey dark/ 3/4 reddish cream

hmm i had a bunch of text and it all disappeared when I posted and a bunch of the pics duplicated? this forum is so weird with that sometimes

so is she looking like silvery tabby wiht rufusing or a torby?

their base paws reports say 1 copy of dilute and 2 copies of long hair one typical polycat and 1 common with ragdoll (or was it norwegian I'd have to go look it up to be sure)

he does have a liquid rubber thing going on. he pours off you. you can't really carry him in any normal kind of way. you have ot carry him like a baby because he just won't hold form. I've never seen the likes of which. he'll pour off your lap as well.

both have low general polycat similarities (18 percent over all) and a lot of western similarities (68 percent over all) all of the forest cats showed up with high similarities, but his coloring apparently comes from siamese/burmese.

I put his pics in just for people looking for toasty kitten pics as they age. i'll post more of them in winter when they're a year or so. right now it seems like their heads are too little for their body. I guess that's what we see grow next. they're nearly as big as my sib in length and height but not quite as big.


i don't have any pics of her walking away I want to try and get one.. but her tail is a glorious thing to behold. it's bigger than she is. like seriouslythe floof is wider than she is. the tail is wider than her legs lol i think it's wider than her head.

 

[LunarFlower]

Aww, they’ve gotten so big! I love seeing growing-up pics. My cats have had a lot of color change in the last few months, too! I’ll have to post an update when I get some good pics.

 

[di and bob]

Those tails!!!! Absolutely gorgeous! Oriental eyes too!

 

[thefiresidecat]

here we are at 8.5 months old. their tails are coming in. clarissa's tail is an omg thing. its like a flouncy feather boa. lol. I've honestly never seen a tail quite like it. I can't capture it on film. its wider than she is and sooo flouncy lol. Claudes coat is really interesting as it darkens. along his spine he has some ever so slightly coarser guard hairs that are frosted with cream but under that a mocha color. over all he's as soft as a bunny. he is very long. he likes to get into the bathtub and air snorgle lol.

the pics with claude and tibby in the chair are a new thing that seems to happen only at dinner time. I get up to go get dinner and there they both are when I come back five minutes later. it's funny. they just materialize cuddled up together.. but only at dinner time. lol

 

[di and bob]

Absolutely beautiful!