What Will These Kittens Look Like When They’re Older?

[Maya567]

Hi everyone! I wanted to get some advice on what these kittens will look like. They’re only two weeks old, so I know it’s too early to tell, but I just wanted some opinions .

This is their mom, she’s a really sweet stray short hair that’s been living in our garden Since she was Really young (about two years ago).

This is her other kitten, about four months old (he was the only kitten in the litter)

The first pic is the kittens the day after they were born,

then the next pics are them now (sorry they’re blurry!).

The calicos are all female and the spotted and tabby are male. The males and the dilute calicos have very different fur; it’s very cottony feeling (if u can tell here)

The others have much longer and silkier fur. The calicos have much wider faces and they’ve been growing a lot faster than their siblings. Is it possible for them to be different breeds? They don’t look alike in terms of fur and size. Also, do the calicos look like they could potentially grow to be medium hair? I just noticed that their tails are a lot fluffier than their siblings and wanted to know if that could be the reason (don’t know what their dad looks like but their mom is shorthair and they look very different then she did when she was a kitten).

I’m thinking of giving a few of them away to friends when they’re old enough (we have a cat and she doesn’t like other cats around) if they are too long haired because it’s really hot where I live. If not, they can live with their mom and older brother in our garden because we feed them, plus the older cats are happy and are really attached to us.

I also wanted to ask, one of the kittens who was the runt is still much smaller then her siblings but she seems to be progressing the same. Is it something to worry about?

Thank you guys!

 

[lutece]

First of all, do you have plans to get the mother cat spayed soon? If her older kitten is only four months old now, that means she got pregnant when her kitten was less than two months old! She can come into heat again at any time, and become pregnant again, and these closely repeated pregnancies are really not good for her or her kittens. You need to make sure she doesn't have access to male cats while she is nursing these babies and before you have her spayed.

It is possible that the litter may have more than one father, but my guess is that the differences you are seeing between the kittens are just normal variation. From looking at the kittens and mother, it would be possible for the entire litter to have been sired by a red and white male, carrying the genes for dilute (blue) and non-agouti (solid, not tabby). If the fluffier kittens turn out to be longhairs, he must also have carried the longhair gene. The father himself could be either longhair or shorthair.

 

[StefanZ]

Interesting almost all kittens are calicos or diluted calico (I suppose they are girls), just one is a tabby from momma (I suppose a boy, simply to to even up the statistics). The tom was surely a white spotted, probably as Lutece says, a red and white. Both these colors may be inherited through father. He is possibly purebred, as he probably is homozygot on both red and white spot.

The black color they can get from momma - and did so.
IF there is another tom, its the tabby whom is the result, but its not necessary for us, as momma apparently carries tabby.

That many calicos isnt common with the father as the main donator. With momma a tortie / calico its more common, as tortie mommas tends to get tortie daus.


ps. The diluted calico has also visible tabby markings on its dark fields, so its really a diluted patched tabby Or diluted caliby as some may say.

We do have thus two tabbies in the field of kittens; one a tabby bicolor ("tabby tuxedo"), one diluted patched tabby.

 

[lutece]

StefanZ, the father of the litter *must* be red and white because red is carried on the X chromosome. Because the mother of the litter is a brown tabby (no red), she gives one non-red X chromosome to all of her kittens, male and female. The red and white father of the litter gives a red X to all of his daughters, so ALL of his daughters are torties and torbies (one red X, one non-red X). To his sons, he gives the Y chromosome which makes them boys, but doesn't have either a red or non-red gene on it. So the sons just get the non-red X from mom, and therefore they are all non-red.

I would guess that the father of this litter is also likely to have lots of white on him (homozygous for white spotting) because all of the kittens inherited the white spotting gene, but he might just have one copy and the kittens got lucky in all inheriting it.

 

[lutece]

He is possibly purebred, as he probably is homozygot on both red and white spot.

You can actually use the term "hemizygous" for red, because red is sex linked and therefore he only has one copy of it

I wouldn't say that we have any evidence of the father of the litter being purebred; he is most likely simply a domestic red and white tom cat.

If mom grew up in the neighborhood, the father of the litter may be her brother or father or grandfather as well as her mate...

 

[StefanZ]

StefanZ, the father of the litter *must* be red and white because red is carried on the X chromosome. Because the mother of the litter is a brown tabby (no red), she gives one non-red X chromosome to all of her kittens, male and female. The red and white father of the litter gives a red X to all of his daughters, so ALL of his daughters are torties and torbies (one red X, one non-red X). To his sons, he gives the Y chromosome which makes them boys, but doesn't have either a red or non-red gene on it. So the sons just get the non-red X from mom, and therefore they are all non-red.

I would guess that the father of this litter is also likely to have lots of white on him (homozygous for white spotting) because all of the kittens inherited the white spotting gene, but he might just have one copy and the kittens got lucky in all inheriting it.

Tx for the clarification. Yet I think a slight inaccuracy found her way in: No, ALL daus dont need to get red from a red father. Its only if he is homozygot on red when all will get it. Is he heterozygot, only half will get it.

So even if you have entirely right: a red tom gets tortie daus, but its not the usual ALL daus are torties. Because not all red toms are homozygot on red.
Our tom is if not surely so probably, homozygot on both white spot and on red.

That is why we got here a somewhat unusual result.

ps. Ah, just one red gen... Shall think more on it.

 

[lutece]

Tx for the clarification. Yet I think a slight inaccuracy found her way in: No, ALL daus dont need to get red from a red father. Its only if he is homozygot on red when all will get it. Is he heterozygot, only half will get it.

He cannot be homozygous or heterozygous; he can have a maximum of one copy (hemizygous) for the red gene, since red is X-linked.

 

[lutece]

The black color they can get from momma - and did so.
IF there is another tom, its the tabby whom is the result, but its not necessary for us, as momma apparently carries tabby.

We actually do know that the father has tabby markings, but we do not know if he is genetically a tabby! Why?

First of all, solid (non-tabby) is recessive. So the father of the litter is genetically either solid (aa), or tabby carrying solid (Aa). The mother must be tabby carrying solid (Aa), since she is herself a tabby (A-) and she is producing calico kittens with solid black patches (aa).

HOWEVER, since we know the father has the red gene on his X chromosome and is therefore red, he will actually have tabby markings and look just like a red tabby and white, whether he is genetically a tabby (Aa) or a solid (aa), because the non-agouti gene (a) doesn't affect pheomelanin pigment; red cats are all phenotypically tabbies even when they are genetically solids.

 

[mightyboosh]

OMG!

 

[Maya567]

Thanks everyone for you help! Yes we’re getting her spayed soon. If the dads probably red and white, one of my neighbors has a long haired male cat she sometimes lets out so I’m thinking it might be him. Three of them have really short and dense fur and they’re so much smaller than the black and orange calicos, but they’re all healthy and starting to walk now