Siamese breeder current or retired question

I have a question about something I heard and I was wondering if this is true or not. I have heard that every so often you get a throw back black kitten in the litter. I have heard this several times before and I was wondering if its possible and have you ever had this happen. I did do some research once and it said that back with the original Siamese or Thai cat different types. One was the Royal cats at the palace and those are the ones we see most often today. But there was also the street Siamese that the villagers and such kept and ran the streets. And thats why you sometimes get a throw back black because the street ones were sometimes black.

Here is the website where I read about this once:
http://www.chiangmai-chiangrai.com/siamese_cats.html

Siamese is recessive to solid color, so it's not possible to get a black cat from two pointed parents.

I'm pretty sure several of the markings on that page aren't possible in felines...particularly the ones with rabbit-like markings and skunk-like markings. Also the one with white ears and the one with a white collar. I believe white spotting generally starts from the feet and moves up.

The pointed gene is recessive. The Oriental cat is a cross between Siamese and solid/tabby colored cats. The type was bred back to Siamese to get the same "look" but in all different colors. Orientals can produce pointed kittens because of the siamese gene.

Although there is some genetics that indicate the siamese is also carrying the tabby gene (spotted) as the Ocicat was created from a siamese and aby - the cats came out spotted. The aby is a ticked tabby, but the spots were found on some lines of siamese because when they aged, the body developed "ghost" spotting. If you look at the old style siamese, you can see some of that spotting in many of the cats.

My mother has never heard of a black Siamese.
She was a breeder many years ago.

I did have a blue eyed black cat that I found as a stray a very long time ago, but there was nothing remotely Siamese about him.

I did some looking around online and did see one. But it could be mixed but it sure does look like a Siamese to my amateur eyes.

Scroll down to Diamond:
http://pets.blogcarnival.com/archive...ats/index.html

Diamond is a Black Oriental Shorthair.

You beat me - its obvious that Diamond is a black Oriental SH (that's what I was saying in my post) More then likely he's out of an Oriental/Siamese breeding and some kittens were pointed, some solid - so the owner is calling it a "black siamese"

The GCCF registered kittens born of 2 siamese parents and with siamese siblings that looked completely siamese other than coat (which was black) and eye colour on 3 separate occassions during the 20th century.

It IS possible, because there is such a thing as spontaneous genetic mutation. It is spontaneous genetic mutations that resulted in every cat colour that isn't 'wild type' that we know today, and that also created both the Cornish and Devon Rex breeds. It is the mechanism behind genetic diversity.

It is fairly rare, but for every 10,000 litters (or any number of litters you care to choose!) there will be a certain percentage of individual offspring that show some spontaneous mutation - where a gene hasn't replicated exactly, resulting in a slight genetic difference - curly hair, no tail, black coat colour - these differences from the wild phenotype all occurred like this in the first instance. Those differences can then be passed on through either siblings with similar mutations mating together in the wild (such as with polydactylism, black/orange/dilute coat etc), or through a breeding programme (as in the Rex breeds).

If it didn't ever happen, all budgies would be green and yellow, and all cats would be the same colour as their wild ancestors. Or if you take it to its logical conclusion, we'd never have developed beyond single-cell organisms.

Thanks Epona for the facts on this. Like I said I was more curious than anything else if this has ever happen. And from what you found it looks like tho rare has happened 3 times 100 or so years.

Hubby swears when he was a child their Siamese had a litter of kittens. The mother was pure Siamese father he said he is unsure about (this was 20-25 years ago or more). But all the kittens minus one came out looking like a classic Siamese in color but one was jet black.

I was doing some reading yesterday on gentics. It said that the seal point (I think) was actually black. But because it has the Himalayin gene (guess the one that creates the points) are there they come out seal point. I'll have to look that link back up.

Here it is:

http://www.cat-world.com.au/cat-worl...segenetics.htm

Genetically, a seal point Siamese is a black cat. But the Himalayan gene inhibits the full expression of the pigment.

Click to expand...

Yep that's how I understand the seal point, strangely I was just thinking about that the other day (I was doing a slightly bizarre 'thought experiment' whereby I was working out the probabilities of different phenotypes and genotypes that might occur from a mating between Radar and Sonic - bizarre in that they are both neutered males but then I never claimed to be normal ) so it's sort of fresh in my head iykwim.

Sometimes with spontaneous mutations there can be other problems - not always but there's a higher chance - because if that himalayan gene hasn't replicated properly, then there's a possibility that others may have done the same and may result in health problems. As I understand it, the early Devon Rex had a lot of health issues which in all likelihood spontaneously arose at the same time as the curly hair as part of the same mutation and it's taken a lot of very careful and knowledgable selection of mates and outcrosses to eliminate those problems - and at a time when a lot of modern health screening tests weren't yet available. Not a project for the faint-hearted.

Because the rex gene is recessive, you would have to do a lot of back crossing so it would be fairly heavy in inbreeding. That's where the health problems come in till you can expand the gene pool.

Interesting on the siamese - seal point would be considered "black" genetically. So its possible the siamese WERE also carrying the spotted tabby genes too since the Ocicat is a cross of siamese and aby. The Abysinnian is a ticked tabby. As far as I know Abys have never shown anything other then a ticked pattern. And apparently some siamese in the 1960's looked "spotted" as they aged, which would mean they were carrying some kind of tabby recessively.

I'm also open to learning more on genetics

Must be a lot of "mutation" genes involved in Ling, considering she was born blue mack tabby, then got blue points, then seal points and now she's black/white!

Going off at a slight tangent - I was reading something interesting the other day, I didn't realise until then that Abys were used to create the cinnamon (and its dilute, the fawn) oriental, and cinnamon and fawn point siamese. It was a misguided attempt to create a pure albino, based on red-point x red self genetic interaction in guinea pigs, which as it turns out doesn't apply in cat colour genetics! Do US registries accept those colours? They're quite new and at present rare here.

Ling is a chameleon cat

Got that right about Ling, but she's stuck in a black/white coat now

Yes cinnamon and fawn are found in Oriental colors. That's also where you got the cinnamon and fawn Ocicats - from the red abys I have not heard of the cinnamon/fawn pointed siamese yet over here - in CFA if accepted it would be under the "Colorpoint SH" and not the siamese.

With the Oci's, the original intent (and it was achieved eventually) was a ticked tabby point siamese - so you could get a cinnamon point siamese from an aby.

Originally Posted by GoldenKitty45

Got that right about Ling, but she's stuck in a black/white coat now

Yes cinnamon and fawn are found in Oriental colors. That's also where you got the cinnamon and fawn Ocicats - from the red abys

I have not heard of the cinnamon/fawn pointed siamese yet over here - in CFA if accepted it would be under the "Colorpoint SH" and not the siamese.

With the Oci's, the original intent (and it was achieved eventually) was a ticked tabby point siamese - so you could get a cinnamon point siamese from an aby.

Click to expand...

Cool, I'm well up on GCCF oriental/siamese colours but never quite sure about the CFA et.al. being that you all use strange terminology over the pond

Sonic's breeder is trying for fawns - all her breeding cats carry cinnamon and dilute (apart from the new female kitten she's just got). Fawns only got GCCF Champion Status as of 1st June this year, and cinnamon and fawn point siamese are still Provisional I think, not quite so sure on the Siamese side of things. Her fawn queen (Sonic's half-sister) is currently in the running to become the first ever fawn OSH champion, which is excellent since there's no such thing as a 'one show champion' under GCCF rules, let alone a 'one show grand'...completely different showing system to the one you describe, but I digress... as usual

I'll check ACFA and TICA standards and see if either mentions them as color choices. TICA may accept them - usually they are the 1st in accepting new colors/breeds.

I don't see either of them accepting the cinnamon point.


Ahh - found it - but its not considered as a "siamese" here - its under (ACFA) the Oriental SH - cinnamon point and fawn point Also check out the solids - apricot and caramel These colors are accepted as genetically possible - not saying they've produced them yet.

http://www.acfacats.com/oriental_sh_standard.htm

My childhood Siamese was pure black, and I always figured she was an Oriental once I started looking into cat breeds because she was solid black, but I'm a little confused... We got her from a breeder who was breeding Siamese and they ended up with a pure black kitty which they weren't showing and didn't want as part of their breeding program, so we got her for free. When we went to pick her up all the other Siamese were pointed, I don't remember any solid coloured kitties.

Of course, this was about 16 years ago now so I could be a little mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that's what the story was. I'll have to check with my mum now.

GK - We have caramel & apricot Siamese here, for a few years now. I think they currently have Provisional status in the GCCF (I do wish all websites would show the date the page was written tho!)

In the GCCF the way Siamese and Oriental are classified is a bit different to other registries... any new colours in Siamese are likely to eventually be accepted as Siamese once they've been through assessment to ensure they meet Siamese SOP. We don't have a distinction between Siamese and Colourpoint SH.

Also Siamese from mixed OSH/Siamese litters are classified and shown as Siamese, not OSH AOV like in some other registries. OSH from mixed litters are registered on the supplemental register as they carry colourpoint, but they can be shown the same as OSH/OSH progeny. Sonic is from a mixed litter - his dam is blue OSH and his sire is lilac-point Siamese, he is registered as OSH.

Sarah - if both parents were Siamese, then it had to be a 'black siamese', not OSH, a pointed cat cannot carry a gene for solid colour so there's no way two colourpoint parents could produce an OSH.

I am actually of the opinion that there are probably more black siamese produced than are reported, because it's seen as highly undesirable (although I hate the word, it's basically a genetic deformity) so I think there's a high likelihood that when one pops up, many breeders would neuter and find a good pet home for it without advertising the fact.

i totally forgot till just now that we have a local Siamese breeder here in my town. So I just sent her an email on this question and hopefully I will here back from her. We I get a response I'll let you know what she says.