male tortoise shell

Hi, i am getting a male tort, i thought torts were all female though, is he rare?

surely some of you experienced cat owners should know?

Okay, I'm no expert here.
But, from what my Vet told me...I have a Tortie girl...the chances of a Male Tortie are very rare.
He said something like 99.99% of all Torties are female and IF you run across a Male the chances are again about 99.99% that he would be sterile.

It is very rare to get a male tortie, as you can't get a normal tortie without 2 X chromosomes so male torties are XXY - a genetic abnormality. You can also get mosaic cats which happens when a red cat has patches of black hair caused by a mutation (as opposed to being inherited as is the case with the red and black hair in a normal tortie).

Interesting read here

http://www.messybeast.com/tricolours.htm

Do you have a pic of your cat?

Is this a pedigree or mixed breed? I'd double check and see if its really a male. They are 99.9% females.

I know personally (have seen them) of 3 male calicos - 2 were cornish rexes; one was a blue cream household pet mixed breed. And surprisingly the rexes both were fertile males - they sired kittens - that's even rarer.

I hope you are not paying any more money then normal if its a pedigree!

Hiya,

I am getting him free of a friend, her lil girl has become allergic to his fur. He is defo male, they have had him for 5 yrs, and has not been spayed, so i guess if it was a girl, it would of got pregnant by now. But i dont plan to breed him, so im going to get him spayed anyway. I dont know if he is a pedigree.

I do have a pic, but i cant find my bluetooth dongle, we just moved house, lol. will have a hunt around and get some pics up for you later.

With this gentice abnormality, is there any health problems that come with it?

Cant wait to see pics. With regards to health, it is still vital to neuter him, even if he is sterile, there is still the risk of testicular cancer later in life. i haven't heard of any other issues, but shall watch and see if others have.

Yeah id rather have him spayed too, stops him spraying and being smelly and randy lol.

BTW its "spayed" for females and "neutered" for males

Some grey tabbies have orang-ish bellies and could have little bits of "white" found on them...sometimes they are mistakenly referred to as tortie or calico just because they have black, orange and white found on their body...but they aren't torties.

Maybe you have a rarity there...it does happen.

True, but blue tabbies have a buff colored undercoat that could be mistaken for blue cream My first cat was a blue tabby - thought he was blue cream till the judge told me that the buff color was natural on a blue tabby.

But if the cat has both black and red in the coat, he would be a male tortie. That's why I mentioned about double checking. Since the cat is NOT neutered yet, it would be obvious if he still had his "package"