orange tabby?

chausiefan

TCS Member
Thread starter
Alpha Cat
Joined
Oct 24, 2005
Messages
686
Purraise
12
Location
Ontario
hello

I was just wondering do most orange tabby kittens get darker as they age? they start off kinda really faint then get more color later on?
 

momofmany

TCS Member
Veteran
Joined
Jul 15, 2003
Messages
16,249
Purraise
70
Location
There's no place like home
As a mom to many of them, I can say that its hit or miss. The ones that turn into a deeper red color usually start out lighter, but more often than not, they remain about the same color.

You'll just have to wait for the surprise!
 

tigerontheprowl

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Mar 22, 2006
Messages
2,512
Purraise
11
Location
Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
You can never know for sure but according to a friend of mine who is a vet, about 50% get a little bit darker, 25% get to have a really dark orange color, and another 25% don't change.
 

jcat

Mo(w)gli's can opener
Veteran
Joined
Feb 13, 2003
Messages
73,213
Purraise
9,851
Location
Mo(w)gli Monster's Lair
Orange tabbies don't seem to adhere to any rules. I live in Germany, and roughly 98% of all orange tabbies here are male. On Malta, there seem to be a lot of female orange tabbies.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #5

chausiefan

TCS Member
Thread starter
Alpha Cat
Joined
Oct 24, 2005
Messages
686
Purraise
12
Location
Ontario
in my book it says orange tabby cats seem to have more spunk seem to be more "wild in nature" and attack bigger prey then normal tabby and bi colors and blacks etc..

Also it says that orange tabbys are more common out in rural farm/wilderness areas

Do you think this is true? or is mybook just silly? LOL
 

pekoe & nigel

TCS Member
Super Cat
Joined
Jan 28, 2007
Messages
916
Purraise
1
Location
Canada
Don't know about the colour change thing.... Pekoe is a little over a year and looks about the same as he did when a kitten. So I can't be much help there.

As for the spunk.... hmmm well Pekoe can be pretty darn lazy, but he does have his absolutely frantic moments. Just like any other cat I guess. My Mom's orange tabby is just psychotic though, and would absolutely try to take down the biggest prey he could find (like say, a human...). So, in my limited experience, it's a bit hard to generalize.
 

momofmany

TCS Member
Veteran
Joined
Jul 15, 2003
Messages
16,249
Purraise
70
Location
There's no place like home
Originally Posted by chausiefan

in my book it says orange tabby cats seem to have more spunk seem to be more "wild in nature" and attack bigger prey then normal tabby and bi colors and blacks etc..

Also it says that orange tabbys are more common out in rural farm/wilderness areas

Do you think this is true? or is mybook just silly? LOL
If you look at my siggie, every one came from a rural farm area as feral cats. I just chaulked it up to my particular neighborhood.

Mine are anything but wild. They are very mellow cats for the most part.
 

epona

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Jul 24, 2006
Messages
4,663
Purraise
949
Location
London, England
Originally Posted by TigerOnTheProwl

You can never know for sure but according to a friend of mine who is a vet, about 50% get a little bit darker, 25% get to have a really dark orange color, and another 25% don't change.
That makes sense to me. Full colour density in all cats usually develops between 1-3 years old, the hairs on a kitten contain sparser pigment than that of an adult cat (which is why solid coloured kittens tend to lose ghost tabby markings as they age), so I would expect some individuals to have deeper colour as adults and some to stay similar depending on the shade of pigment being produced. I would also expect it to be more visibly noticeable in a red cat than a black cat, even though they all go through the same process.
 

stampit3d

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Sep 5, 2005
Messages
2,864
Purraise
1
Location
Michigan USA
Our Tedy just turned 3 last month....and for the past several months we`ve been noticing that he seems a bit darker to us. (However, we also adopted a beige tabby during the summer....so maybe Tedy just SEEMS darker to us by comparison!!!)
As far as attitude....he is the most laid back of all of our 3 cats!
Linda
 

icklemiss21

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Aug 14, 2005
Messages
16,465
Purraise
20
Location
in the land of poutine and ice
Bumper is lazy but he does, when he wants to, have a really wild side. I guess it is more of a surroundings thing but that instinct is probably in them.

I find Bumper's winter coat is darker than his fummer coat, but his summer coat is more orange than the dark buff colour of his winter coat.

A thing I have noticed is orange cats tend to be bigger than other colours, it is rare to see small orange cats (at least around here)
 

krazy kat2

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Sep 14, 2001
Messages
8,085
Purraise
41
Location
Somewhere in Georgia
Every orange tabby I have ever had except Scooter has gotten a little darker and a lot more mellow as they get older. Even though I love him to bits, he is kind of a screechy little butthead.
I had a yellow tabby, Fred in my siggy, that lost his tabby markings at about age 15, but he started looking a little threadbare then, too. He lived to be 18, and he was solid medium gold color by then, with gray around his muzzle and whiskers. I think he was so cute when he got old.
 

pekoe & nigel

TCS Member
Super Cat
Joined
Jan 28, 2007
Messages
916
Purraise
1
Location
Canada
Originally Posted by icklemiss21

A thing I have noticed is orange cats tend to be bigger than other colours, it is rare to see small orange cats (at least around here)
Pekoe is definitely turning into a big cat, but my Mom's orange tabby is, well, scrawny. It's been my general experience that orange cats are larger too, so I don't know where my Mom's came from!
 

bnwalker2

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Aug 17, 2006
Messages
8,991
Purraise
4
Location
Rising Sun, Indiana
I have 3 orange cats (all males) and three orange and white (2 males, 1 female). Two of those are adults and are both average sized at one year old... they are about 6-7 pounds each. Two of the kittens I have are going to be bigger, one is already 5 1/2 pounds at 5 months old.

I haven't noticed the adults changing colors, though the kittens are still changing but I expect that from kittens.

In general, my orange cats are all a lot crazier and more active than my non-orange cats. But then again, most are boys, and the boys seem a lot more active than the girls anyway!
 

bearto3orgtabs

TCS Member
Kitten
Joined
Mar 3, 2015
Messages
1
Purraise
2
We have three orange tabbies. Two were kittens when we got them and one is the mother. The kittens have gotten a bit darker with age  (they're now 2, they adopted us at 2 mos old). Neither are a darker orange like Mom is or dad was (since they were wild, we brought them in,  dad was feral until he was run over recently) both the kittens (now cats) are dark golds/beige in color.
 
Top