Cat's eye colour?

temperpolk

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I wasn't sure where to post this, but since it doesn't involve an actual health problem I opted for this forum. I was wondering at what age a kitten's eye colour becomes definite. Mojo is just short of 7 weeks but I can't tell for sure what the eye colour is (I was trying to add his profile page on here and that question stumped me). I know that on his blown up pic his eyes look greenish but in real life they are more brownish. Are cats' eyes determined by their coat colour?
 

missymotus

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Usually by 12 weeks you get the eye colour, but green can take up to 12 months to turn.

Pointed cats always have blue eyes, white cats often have blue or odd eyes. Most other coats colours can have any eye colour.
 

prairienights

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Originally Posted by missymotus

Usually by 12 weeks you get the eye colour, but green can take up to 12 months to turn.

Pointed cats always have blue eyes, white cats often have blue or odd eyes. Most other coats colours can have any eye colour.
Not necessarily. There are two genes that act very similar to each other as far as pointed coat color. The siamese version which will give you blue eyes, and the burmese version (somebody correct me on the terminology) that has yellow eyes and a similar pointed coat effect. They're both pointed cats, and it's the same locus that's being affected, just different alleles.

 

tashaam

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Its about 12 weeks like someone else said.

When my kitten was born he had blueish greenish eyes at first, but then they turned to yellow on the outside and green on the inside - plus hes an orange tabby so his eyes match his fur !
 

jack31

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With Pepper she was at least 16 weeks before I really knew her eye color--had her since the day she was born.

Her eyes are like nothing I've seen on a domestic moggie either. Maybe with the new digital camera I'm getting for Christmas I'll be able to capture a good picture of them. They are brown with a very very fine ring of green around the pupil.

Leslie
 

p&r

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Rosalie had blue eyes when she was born, by 6 weeks you could start to see the green swirling around them, by 8 or 10 weeks they were completely green.
 

bunnelina

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My kitten's eyes seem to be gray, at 4 months. They are beautiful, the same color as his fur. I've never seen a cat with eyes this color. Do you folks think they will change?
 

zohdee

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Genetics just intrigue me.

I am still baffled how a black and white kitty who mates with an orange kitty ends up with one calico, one kind of Siamese and one Himalyan.

I also wonder if their eye color will change.
 

northernglow

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I've been told that it's still very hard to predict eyecolors because they are affected by a lot more alleles than fur colors for example. Some of them are linked to fur color (like siamese points&blue eyes and burmese points&yellow eyes).
It's very hard to get a good green eyecolor, and I'm now talking about a pure green, not any mixed yellow-brownish-green. I have cats with green, blue and 'tarnished' yellow eyecolors, and both of the yellow eyed cats have green eyed daddy and a bad green or yellow eyed mother. Sometimes breeders mix pointed cats (blue eyes) to green eyes to make the green better, which seems to work, but yellow will ruin it completely. If you know what you are looking at, you will know around 12weeks if the kitten will have green eyes but it takes a lot of time for green to get to it's 'final stage'.
Picture examples:
Kuura 12weeks old, clearly getting nice green eyes

And last summer at the age of 2 years, still a bit too pale color but clearly green


Kuura's son Tomu at the age of 14 weeks, yellowish eyes

And mixed yellow eyes at the age of 7 months
 

goldenkitty45

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Some breeds have specific eye colors because the breeders choose to concentrate on that specific eye color (e.g. Russian Blues have very intense green eye color). In other breeds like Maine Coons, Ocicats, etc. - the eye color is not so important and you get a lot of mixed color shades - usually we call them "hazel"
 

p&r

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Yeah, we thought Rosalie's eyes were going to be/stay green but now they're a greenish with yellow tint.
6 weeks, you can see the green coming in.


12-ish weeks, you can see the yellow tint


16-ish weeks,not a very good eye pick but you can see how they're more yellow than green.
 

Willowy

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Their eyes can change color after they're older, too. The cat I had as a child had rust-colored eyes when she was young, and now they're yellow (she's 20 years old).
 

ricky_ponting

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well i hope u have got ur answer. thanks for creating this thread and sharing with us.
 
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