Same Father?

[emilyodette]

My baby lily bear has HOCM and there’s a 50% chance it’s genetic and her sister has it too. I’m tracking down her littermates today to see if they’re having an problems and what they look like.
Lily is an orange, white, & black tortie. Gray has chimera (her face is half gray half beige). They both have an orange striped leg. I’m hoping they don’t have the same father so this gene is less likely to affect both. Maybe a chimera tortie father who is black & orange or gray and a gray or black & orange tortie mother? I don’t expect answers but I’m researching all I can before lil gray gets her echocardiogram thing in 2 weeks.

 

[emilyodette]

Also, lily is a bit furrier than gray.
Striped orange tabby dad & calico mom?

 

[lutece]

Your girl Gray is a dilute calico (also known as blue-cream and white, or dilute tortoiseshell and white). A "half and half" face (half red, half black... or in this case half cream, half blue) does NOT mean a cat is a chimera; it is totally normal for tortoiseshell and calico cats. The main reason to suspect a chimera is when a cat has an "impossible" color combination that cannot be explained any other way.

Your girls certainly could have the same father. Father could be red tabby or cream tabby (or either of those combined with white). Or if the mother was a tortoiseshell, dilute tortie, red, or cream, the father could have been solid black, solid blue, brown tabby, blue tabby, or any of those with white.

 

[emilyodette]

Okay thank you! I’m really hoping they don’t have the same father but genetic testing and further examination of lil gray will be done as soon as I can.

 

[Willowy]

Many torties have a half-&-half face, that doesn't necessarily mean she's a chimera . I think the only way to know that is to do a DNA test.

Males are almost never tortie, most male torties are sterile, and even if a male is tortie and fertile he only passes on one color, so the father was probably not a tortie.

The most likely scenario, since they're both tortie, is that one parent was dark and one was red. One may have been dilute but not necessarily, if they both carried the dilute gene.

There's nothing to indicate they have different fathers, but, well, with cats you just never know .

Best wishes for a good test result! That's really nerve-wracking.

 

[lutece]

Unfortunately, you can't do a genetic test for HCM unless your cat is one of the specific breeds for which a test has been developed (Ragdoll, Maine Coon). HCM is seen in many breeds including domestics. In many cases HCM is due to genetic factors, but it is not always genetic.

I'm a bit skeptical about your vet's 50% figure. *IF* Lily has an inherited form of HCM from one of her parents, and Gray has the same parents, Gray would have a 50% chance of inheriting the gene for HCM from that parent. However, even if Gray inherits the gene for HCM it doesn't necessarily mean she would develop HCM. It just means an increased risk of developing HCM compared to the average cat.