Jack's officially a father!

Originally Posted by tiffanyjbt

Does tarnishing usually get better or worse as a cat ages?

Thank you Terra, for the reply. Your site is very informative.

That tabby "M" is a stubborn gene, isn't it?!?

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Depends on the cat. Generally if the cat is born with little to no tarnish, if it tarnishes then the tarnishing tends to get worse as they grow. Then there's the opposite. Sometimes a cat is born very tarnished and sheds it later.

Yes the tabby M is very stubborn, so is the large, pointed ears and the whited belly that stays to maturity (lack of a whited belly I mean).

That's weird about the silvers I would have sworn they all were SILVER cause of the bodies - not the faces. But the opposite is true.

I'm SOOOOOO glad Charlie is a natural chocolate No mistaking his color

Originally Posted by GoldenKitty45

That's weird about the silvers

I would have sworn they all were SILVER cause of the bodies - not the faces. But the opposite is true.

I'm SOOOOOO glad Charlie is a natural chocolate

No mistaking his color

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Oh yeah I NEVER look at the bodies (other than the undercoat) when judging the silver color. I have had a ton of charcoal browns that really, really looked silver, even fooling very experianced long time breeders.

I saw a very dark charcoal brown cat on your site. What kind of offspring does he produce? Are they mostly charcoal as well? I know the trend is often for rufousing, but I think if a cat is charcoal but has great contrast it beats a highly rufoused bengal hands down... Am I wrong about that?

I read the charcoal page on your site, and I have to tell you there is no way you could have convinced me that the kitten in that first picture was anything but silver!

Oh! And does Seattle have a whited tummy???

I just now had another close look at the kittens.
I'm certain they are all browns. The up side, is they all look to be golden, based on how our goldens have looked in the past. They all have brilliantly clear coats as well. I'm not going to complain that we have no silvers from this litter, the goldens are equally as nice. The dam of this litter, produced 3 goldens in her last litter, so I'm not surprised that these guys all look to be goldens.

And, to answer about the tabby "M" question, all these kittens exhibit the good ole M...unfortunately. We don't even concentrate on eliminating that at this point. We're working the ears, lack of rib barring, muzzle and profile and to a lesser extent the whited bellys.

Terra,
thanks for clariflying the "browns carrying for silver" issue. I had found out that it was impossible, but didn't follow that up on this thread. You have more experience than I do with these silvers, I hope you don't mind if I pick your brain later on when Jack mates with Ms Spotty Paws. This will be our first silver to silver breeding.

Originally Posted by tiffanyjbt

I saw a very dark charcoal brown cat on your site. What kind of offspring does he produce? Are they mostly charcoal as well? I know the trend is often for rufousing, but I think if a cat is charcoal but has great contrast it beats a highly rufoused bengal hands down... Am I wrong about that?

I read the charcoal page on your site, and I have to tell you there is no way you could have convinced me that the kitten in that first picture was anything but silver!

Oh! And does Seattle have a whited tummy???

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The charcoal that I have as a breeder is a female. She produces all of the normal colors, she produces very roufesed kittens with my roufesed boy. here's a picture of one of her kittens:



Here's a picture of her as a kitten, I think this is the one your talking about. Yes unbelieveably she is a charcoal brown and NOT a silver.



My charcoal brown girl also produces snow kittens. Her father was a seal mink snow and her mother was a mohogany brown.

Im not sure what color Seattle's belly is since she was placed as a pet some time ago. It probably has colored over like her moms though. I have one roufesed SBT boy with a true whited belly at 2 years old, but most cats color over by the time they reach a year old.

The bengal standard calls for roufesing, which I think is a shame because most often charcoals are seen in EG's. I hope that the standard will be changed. There are more and more breeders interested in breeding charcoal browns now so I think were well on our way to changing that standard. They are still accepted because they are technically an accpeted color but are really never shown and probably would not do well in the show ring.

Originally Posted by Kai Bengals

I just now had another close look at the kittens.
I'm certain they are all browns. The up side, is they all look to be golden, based on how our goldens have looked in the past. They all have brilliantly clear coats as well. I'm not going to complain that we have no silvers from this litter, the goldens are equally as nice. The dam of this litter, produced 3 goldens in her last litter, so I'm not surprised that these guys all look to be goldens.

And, to answer about the tabby "M" question, all these kittens exhibit the good ole M...unfortunately. We don't even concentrate on eliminating that at this point. We're working the ears, lack of rib barring, muzzle and profile and to a lesser extent the whited bellys.

Terra,
thanks for clariflying the "browns carrying for silver" issue. I had found out that it was impossible, but didn't follow that up on this thread. You have more experience than I do with these silvers, I hope you don't mind if I pick your brain later on when Jack mates with Ms Spotty Paws. This will be our first silver to silver breeding.

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Nial, be careful about the goldens too...lol I thought for sure I had a golden but he turned out to be much darker than what I expected. His pattern is still dark and very nice but his background color at nearly a year old is definately not golden. Golden is an even harder color to determine than silver and charcoal in my opinion.
Here's a picture of him as a kitten:
And later:


His background is actually even darker then that now.

You are smart not to focus on the "M" thing. It's such a small thing when we have much bigger obstacles to overcome. It's good to be aware of our final goal but it will be a long time before most breeders start focusing breeding programs on things that small.

Feel free to pick my brain any time! I don't know if i'll have all of the answers but I can pretend that I do. lol
These guys tend to throw curveballs every now and then.

Oooohhh! Goldens!!!

Wow! Rib barring, ears, muzzle, profile and the ever elusive whited tummy... Thats a lot to work on Nial! It sounds like an amazing experience. I'm admittedly jealous, but thank you (and Terra) for letting me live vicariously through you!

Question about type (for both Nial and Terra). I know that bengals should look like ALCs in type, but have you seen/do you have any SBT bengals that you feel have expressed this? Especially the muzzle/profile area.

Originally Posted by tiffanyjbt

Oooohhh! Goldens!!!

Wow! Rib barring, ears, muzzle, profile and the ever elusive whited tummy... Thats a lot to work on Nial! It sounds like an amazing experience. I'm admittedly jealous, but thank you (and Terra) for letting me live vicariously through you!

Question about type (for both Nial and Terra). I know that bengals should look like ALCs in type, but have you seen/do you have any SBT bengals that you feel have expressed this? Especially the muzzle/profile area.

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LOL funny you ask that. Go to my site and click on the "Bengal type" link. I think that will answer your question! I am still adding stuff to that page but there's a lot of good info on it already!

Doh! I feel like a bone-head! I was just showing my husband that page a few days ago. He couldn't get past how cute that ALC kitten is though.

Originally Posted by tiffanyjbt

Doh! I feel like a bone-head! I was just showing my husband that page a few days ago. He couldn't get past how cute that ALC kitten is though.

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Hey are you following me??? lol....it seems were both jumping back and forth from here to the bengals list and back. =0)
Yes that ALC kitten is adorable! I swear one of these days I will go steal him from my friend...lol...but just for a few days.

Yup!

I just responded to your post on Glitter because the picture you posted in a thread on this site was the one I was referring to!

I'm wrapping up at work and I've got five days off (including the weekend). I finished everything earlier today, so I'm just hanging around online now until I finally decide to get up from my desk and go home...

Terra,

I'll have to send you some pictures of our goldens and these new kittens. I know it's hard to capture true colors in pictures, but the kitten you posted didn't strike me as golden. Maybe my monitor color is off...I'm using a flat screen and I find sometimes it's different than a CRT.
I always seem to run into problems conveying kitten colors to our buyers too, when it's with pics over the net. They are always surprised (pleasantly) when they see the kittens in person. I'm sure you can relate.

Originally Posted by Kai Bengals

Terra,

I'll have to send you some pictures of our goldens and these new kittens. I know it's hard to capture true colors in pictures, but the kitten you posted didn't strike me as golden. Maybe my monitor color is off...I'm using a flat screen and I find sometimes it's different than a CRT.
I always seem to run into problems conveying kitten colors to our buyers too, when it's with pics over the net. They are always surprised (pleasantly) when they see the kittens in person. I'm sure you can relate.

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Yes please send them to me!
I know, it all depends on the lighting and the monitor. I haven't had a golden here as far as I know so im no expert on it anyway.
I just think the term golden is somewhat obscure to begin with. The explainations i've gotten on the term just don't seem to explain well enough to know for a certainty if one has a golden or not.
I have seen the term really misused over the past few years, much like i've seen far too many people call cats charcoal that were not. I don't think it's because they were purposely mislabeling but I think most people don't know what a golden really is.

I have seen the calcatta bengals in person. Many of them are golden and you can definately tell!
Im just not sure how to tell weather or not kittens will grow out of the golden color or not.

How would you describe a true golden? I know the clarity of the coat is supposed to be extreme and from what i've seen in person, that is true.

Im definately hoping for one in this next breeding between my calcatta silver girl and my inky black spotted brown boy! I'd be more happy with a golden then any other color. Maybe just because I haven't gotten one yet, but when/if I do you can bet it will be a keeper!

Well, supposedly, true goldens can only come from a mating with a silver parent or a golden derived from a silver mating.
I think time will tell if this is completely true. At least 3 of the kittens I'm looking at here, appear golden to me. Extreme contrast, extreme clarity of coat, the spots appear to be in 3-D, background color is really light with a silvery sheen and face color is a light golden color. The 4th kitten has the same features, but is more fuzzy, so I can't say for sure.
Of course getting pictures of all these attributes with a squirming kitten is virtually impossible!

But, as all of us breeding bengals know, things change when we least expect it. Next month could be a different story.

I am however keeping my fingers crossed that I've struck "gold".

Adventure Beach Secret Weapon a.k.a. Gunner looks like he would qualify as a golden to me. Of course, I've never seen one in person, but I've seen pictures of Custom Made and Gunners contrast seems to be very similar. He's the third cat down on the page. Neither of his parents are silver though...

http://www.bengal-cat.net/STUDS.htm

The reading I've done with silvers say you get the goldens out of silvers. So if there are no silvers, I don't think they could be called "golden".

I know that in the ocicats you can get different shades of chocolate including a "hot" chocolate which is a more reddish tone to the color - probably due to the red abys


Tif, personally I wouldn't call any of those bengals "golden" - they have a gold undertone but I've seen Brown American SH's with that golden color in the base.

Run for cover...they're loose!

This morning, all 4 of them were on a mission. Leave the nest and drive mom nuts. For each one she put back, 2 jumped back out. She gave up...lol. They are officially all over us now. When we go into the room, the kittens coming pouring out of the nest like a waterfall of spots. It's fun when they are this age, because they think we are so much more fun than mom.

Here are a couple of pics.

OMG!! How precious. One thing I always notice with all of your baby's, they all have the sweetest looking eyes Im really excited about watching them grow!

Awww! They are just little dolls! They are growing so fast!