Ticking

I was just curious, what's considered good ticking in Abys and Somalis for example?

I'm quite used to thinking of ticking as a bad thing in cats because in Bengals you want as little ticking as possible in the undercoat to make the contrast with the spots as clear as possible.

Also what's the usual colour variance in ticked cats? I.e are the bands of colour on each hair even or are the bottom ones usually much longer? Is the belly always clear and with no ticking?

Be right back - have to check Charlie's ticking to answer



Ok Charlie's ticking/banding on top is solid at the roots with 2-3 alternating bandings/ticking from middle to the end. The ticking is present on the back, sides, tail, legs, and head and a little on the chest.

The belly is not really ticked - mainly one color with some whitish on the tips - but the spots are all over (belly and sides, etc.)

Ocicats are supposed to have a lot of ticking as abys are part of the background and they are supposed to have lots of ticking and very little stripes on the legs. An aby is a ticked cat - and should not have stripes/spots.

I just looked through my photo archives and found a photo of Nikita just after she was spayed where you could easily see the colours of her hairs. She was side spayed so the patch of shaved fur was on her flank not her belly.



Basically they're gray right at the bottom, then her yellowy/mango colour (it's darker now than it is when she was spayed) for a good half of the hair length and then you get a few narrow bands of colour at the very top. Her spots go further down but don't reach all the way to the skin. Her inner legs, belly and underside of the tail and her chest has no ticking at all. Just the mango colour with black markings.

How is smoke different from that type of hair structure? Is the one colour band longer then? or would the gray at the bottom be most of the hair?

Also in Abys do you want as many as possible alternating bands or do you want fewer, should they all be an even width? I guess that an even overall effect is what's wanted.

I would have thought that ticking was not desired in Ocicats since heavy ticking can obscure the spots, especially if the ticking is dark.

Anyway this is all really interesting

No in the standard of Oci's it has to have ticking. Actually the ticking is concentrated more on the back/spine/legs/tail then on the sides - its still on the sides.

On Abys the more the ticking the better.

A smoke is white at the base (or should be as white as possible) and either black, blue, or red, cream for most of the hair. Smoke is the "darkest" (3/4 color to 1/4 white. Then you have Shaded which is less color (1/2 color, 1/2 white) and Shell or Chinchilla (3/4 white and 1/4 color on the tips of the hair).

Here is the Aby ticking requirements:

COAT: soft, silky, fine in texture, but dense and resilient to the touch with a lustrous sheen. Medium in length but long enough to accommodate two or three dark bands of ticking.

Coat color: warm and glowing. Ticking: distinct and even, with dark colored bands contrasting with lighter colored bands on the hair shafts. Undercoat color clear and bright to the skin. Deeper color shades desired, however intensity of ticking not to be sacrificed for depth of color. Darker shading along spine allowed if fully ticked. Preference given to cats UNMARKED on the undersides, chest, and legs; tail without rings. Facial Markings: dark lines extending from eyes and brows, cheekbone shading, dots and shading on whisker pads are all desirable enhancements. Eyes accentuated by fine dark line, encircled by light colored area. Eye color: gold or green, the more richness and depth of color the better.

And the Ocicat:

COAT TEXTURE: short, smooth and satiny in texture with a lustrous sheen. Tight, close-lying and sleek, yet long enough to accommodate the necessary bands of color. There should be no suggestion of woolliness.

TICKING: all hairs except the tip of the tail are banded. Within the markings, hairs are tipped with a darker color, while hairs in the ground color are tipped with a lighter color.

COAT COLOR: all colors should be clear and pleasing. The lightest color is usually found on the face around the eyes, and on the chin and lower jaw. The darkest color is found on the tip of the tail. Contrast is scored separately.

CONTRAST: distinctive markings should be clearly seen from any orientation. Those on the face, legs, and tail may be darker than those on the torso. Ground color may be darker on the saddle and lighter on the underside, chin, and lower jaw. Penalties should be given if spotting is faint or blurred, though it must be remembered that pale colors will show less contrast than darker ones.

GCCF beed standard for somalis (and, presumably, Abys) states that there should be at least 3 bands on every hair (so 6 contrasting colour sections along each hair). Chest, tummy, inside of legs and underside of the tail have no ticking and are in the base colour, but ear tips, facial markings, top and tip of tail, toe tufts and heels are the same colour as the ticking. Darker shading along the spine and top of tail are desirable. Sex linked colours are often slower to develop. As Mosi is red (orange) his ticking has developed quite slowly and I couldn't tell you how many bands he has (maybe that's just my inexperience) but he definitely has the overall effect of ticking.

Ticking should be even with 4-6 bands of color with the tip the darkest.

I don't really need to say anything more do I? For Abys, it should be EVEN bands of color, from light to dark