Ocicat colours

Hey,

I've just been wondering about the Ocicat colours and their popularity

Both here and elsewhere on the net I've only ran into people which chocolate or chocolate silver Ocis. Is that by far the most popular colours or am I just continuing to run into the chocolates on ever narrowing odds?

I've never seen an Ocicat or a chocolate spotted cat (or even a chocolate tabby) up close so I don't really know what the physical effect is although they look very pretty in photos.

So far of the spotted kitties I've only seen bengals up close and that was when I was looking around before getting Nikita (there's her too of course) and they don't come in chocolate although there's a very wide variety of the hues in the brown spotteds.

Also do the chocolate ocicats change their colour a fair bit as they mature or is it pretty much a what you see is what you get when it comes to the kittens?

Here is a great table giving descriptions of colours accepted by the GCCF.

http://www.ameeka.co.uk/OcicatColours.htm

I expect that this differs from the American registries, so you may well get a different answer from our US friends! I find the differences between UK and US colour terminology fascinating so I'm keenly anticipating responses from across the pond so that I can compare

Originally Posted by Epona

Here is a great table giving descriptions of colours accepted by the GCCF.

http://www.ameeka.co.uk/OcicatColours.htm

I expect that this differs from the American registries, so you may well get a different answer from our US friends! I find the differences between UK and US colour terminology fascinating so I'm keenly anticipating responses from across the pond so that I can compare

Click to expand...

Thanks for that! I wasn't really wondering about the definations though, more about which colours were the most popular and why I guess (athough I know cat colours are always highly subjective when it comes to preference).

I'm living in the UK as well and yeah the differences in the terminology is facinating

In the US this is how the Ocicat colors are:

Tawny Spotted - black or very dark brown spots on a tawny (cold brown/black) background.

Chocolate Spotted - chocolate spots on a tan/warm brown background. The chocolate ranging in shades - dark to "hot" which is more of a reddish undertone.

Cinnamon Spotted - red-chocolate spots on a more reddish background.

Blue Spotted - blue spots on a paler blue background

Lavendar Spotted - blue spots on a blue-pinkish background.

Fawn Spotted - light tan spots on a fawn background (I've rarely seen pictures of the fawn so I'm not sure how to describe the color).

That's the 6 basic colors. Now you add the "silver" gene to all of them - in all cases the background becomes various shades of silver/white. The spots would remain the same. In the case of the "tawny" silver - it is just called Silver Spotted (Europe and Australia call it black-silver).

The most popular colors are Chocolate, Tawny, and Chocolate-Silver. Then comes the Cinnamon. And least seen/bred are the Blue/Lavendar/Fawn. Those colors don't have as much of contrast between spots/background color.

Thanks! and yeah it makes sense for the more contrasty colours to be more popular. Such a wide variety though

Actually there are only 12 colors involved - 6 basic and 6 with the silver - not like the Oriental SH with over 200 colors

As far as color changes - not really - only thing is they will get more ticking in the coats as they get older. On some colors, the ticking can make the spots less clear.

It's still a lot more colours than in the bengals, although you do have the snows there that diversify things some.

Am I right in remembering that you can get snow Ocis, i.e pointed? but they're not a recognized colour. Actually thinking it through now that would make sense what with the siamese in their background.

Anyway thanks again

Yes - but they are called "ghost" ocicats. I'll see if I can find a picture of one from a ocicat breeder website - I've seen them - not sure which cattery has the picture. Will check lunchtime today

Do you mean the Ivory? Nola's had a few of them, this is Kwai & Simba

Here's some pictures of the different colors (I think some of the pics are off color, but could be my screen).

Also shows the "non-spotted" patterns. The ghost spotting is more of solid color with faint spots - sorta like the black leopards

http://www.ocicatinfo.com/Ocicolors.htm