What's the likely story behind a solid brown kitten?

beckbjj

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My kitten Grace is the only non-purebred, solid brown cat I've ever seen in person (I did see a pic on these forums from about two or three years ago of another kitten that was very similar to Grace, and I'm aware there are a couple of solid brown breeds).  She is most definitely not black or even rusty black.  I have two rusty black cats and she doesn't even look vaguely like them.

Grace was found by a farmer in his hay barn, needless to say in a rural area where there would be lots of farm cats.  For a week he left her where he found her, watching carefully and bringing her food.  He never saw any sign of Grace's mother in that time, so he gave Grace to a rescuer who is a friend of my husband's, and she gave Grace to us.  So in other words, we have no clue what mom looked like, and certainly no clue about dad. 

I'm curious about these things, so now I'm wondering how my little brown kitten came to be.  At just shy of three months old, she is a uniform, solid brown, with no sign of stripes or other markings.  Her pads are pinkish brown.  Her nose is brown.  Her skin appears to be pink (as near as I can tell).  Her whiskers are brown.  Here eyes are sort of olive with some gold, although I've heard (not sure if it's true) that kittens' eye color continues developing until about four months, so she may not be done yet.

Based on this information, is there a way to tell what her parents may have looked like, and what craziness was going on in her genetics that caused her to be brown?

 

cprcheetah

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She is adorable.  I am interested to hear about this. My sister has a cat who is dark brown and white, kind of like milk chocolate colored.  I have only seen 2 or 3 brown or brown/white cats in 20+ years working for vets.
 
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beckbjj

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Just giving this a bump, in case anyone who didn't see it before may know.
 

profleslielyons

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Howdy,

Sorry for the delay.  Brown came come in different ways in cats.  True Brown is due to mutations at the gene called tyrosine-related protein (TRYP1).  Cats have the normal black (B), a chocolate brown (b) and a light brown (cinnamon) mutation (bl).  This is vary rare and as mentioned Havana Brown's are known for the color.  Likely the cat is homozygous recessive for bb.  Black is dominant to chocolate which is dominant to cinnamon.

Cats with the burmese (sepia) mutation at the tyrosinase (TYR) gene (cbcb) can look brown, often called sable, but this is a different brown.

Some young kittens start as brown and end up black - my kitten "Hershey" did that.

Rare to have a brown kitty - good for you!
 
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beckbjj

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Wow, yea Grace!  Hmm...maybe Grace should buy a lottery ticket! ;-) 

That's really interesting information, thank you!

Does this mean that her parents could've had any coloration seen in domestic shorthairs (and both possessed the (b) gene that Grace was lucky enough to manage to get from both), or does the color that Grace is give information as to what her parents may have looked like?  I know that it's possible to say "mom cat looks like this, dad cat looks like this, the kittens will have the following possible configurations"...does that also work in reverse?   I wish the farmer who found Grace had been able to spot mom somewhere!  
 

profleslielyons

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Howdy - More likely both cats were carriers - so could have been any old color.  But maybe, since this is so rare, we have a group of barn cats that have this DNA variant and perhaps some others are brown too!  Let's see if she holds her color!
 
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beckbjj

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Neat, thanks much!

Here's hoping she does hold her color...with two black cats already a third could make things even more confusing around here! ;-)

Thanks again.
 
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