Big 5-month old kitten has foot long tail, large paws, and fuzzy fur with broken stripes..

What in the world could my Simba be? I thought maybe he could be part ocicat, but I'm not sure.

Both cats we have now were adopted from a shelter and are both considered "domestic shorthairs." However, my Simba started out smaller than the typical-looking female domestic shorthair we have that's three weeks older than he is. His fur is a bit kinked and slightly longer than "short," giving him a fuzzy feel. Each fur strand has multiple color bands. His paws are quite large and his claws are robust. His tail was always long but is now 12 inches long and he's barely 5 months old. His stripes, many of which seem broken, are paler on the sides of his body and bolder on the fronts of his fore and hind legs. The rings on his tail get darker toward the tip and the fur down his back is a little darker than on the rest of his body. On his belly he has a couple rows of elongated, horizontal spots. I'm not sure how much he weighs but it's definitely over six pounds. Also, I'd like to note that he can jump extremely high. Curiously, his fur seems to have darkened a bit in the last couple months. 

Personality traits: extremely playful and curious, follows me around for the most part, likes cuddling on his terms, purrs loudly and often, is sometimes vocal but does not "talk back," curious but does not seem particularly intelligent. He's stubborn and relentless in getting what he wants and sometimes growls like a dog when Nala gets too close when he is focused on a toy.

Photos

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Redder when he was younger (end of July)

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Belly stripes (note the dark spot on the bottom of each hind foot (mid-August)

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Back and tail rings, sitting next to a 12 inch ruler (today) 

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Front of his face and fore legs (mid-September)

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Beside our 6-month old female (today)

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I'm 5' 3", but Simba is still a big boy!

You have a very adorable Domestic Shorthair, from what I can tell! Coloration is red mackerel tabby, unless the stripes on his sides are broken up... Then I guess he would be a red broken-mackerel!

I have never owned a fully red tabby (I have a red/cream point and a tortie and white) but I hear that red boys grow really big!

He looks great and seems like he has an awesome personality to match too!

What a lovely ginger tabby, with nice big upright ears to go with his tail.  He's looking young and lean just now and yes, think he might get quite big!

Thank you! He sure was a lucky find at the shelter. We had to put one of the black & white kittens to sleep the 10th day we had her because she wasn't growing and got sick. Simba was our replacement since she died within two weeks of her adoption date. I had said to my mom that I wanted a red tabby male and it was immediate when they saw him that Simba was destined to be ours.

It's odd that the striped on his side have broken in the past couple months and I wonder why in the world his tail is so long. Could it be that he just has a genetic quirk making it so long, rather than the ancestry of some specific breed of cat?

P.S. He's sitting beside my outstretched legs in a kitten ball right now with our other cat near my feet, grooming herself. The girl Nala is obsessed with grooming herself and has the shiniest coat I've ever seen on any cat.I came home from work early today because I have a damaged wrist. They sure seem happy that I'm home for a change while the sun is still up!

He's adorable. Some cats just have longer tails than others, but he might grow into his tail and ears.

Hes an awesome looking kitty he reminds me of my cheetos when he was a kitten 

Sounds like to me he is a maine coon mix! That is what my baby boy is. He looks jsut like that! he is only 6 months old and looks full grown 

I don't think I've ever seen a ginger cat that wasn't huge. They just get really big for some reason. Probably not Maine Coon though, they have some really distinct physical characteristics other than size, which I don't really see in him (specifically, mixes tend to have long ear hair [tufts], and long hair between the toes and pads, and just a distinct look to the face.

Whatever his ancestry, he is gorgeous!

Simba is adorable!! From what I know, it depends on where you live whether he'd be known as an 'orange' domestic shorthair (U.S.), or a 'ginger' tabby (U.K.)  Beyond this, their coloring can also range from marmalade, yellow, butter, caramel, to butterscotch in appearance.  And their coloring, as well as their striped patterns, are due to genetics:

"The two primary color genes in cats are black and red.  Red cats are most often male, depending on the genes and chromosomes the cat has inherited.  'The Red gene (O) is carried on the X chromosome, and for this reason it is sex-linked. Males normally only have one X chromosome and so if a male carries the Red gene at all, he will be Red. Females have two X chromosomes; if both X chromosomes carry the Red gene, then the cat will be Red.'"  (http://cats.about.com/od/coatcolorp...ofile-All-You-Need-To-Know-About-Red-Cats.htm)

Moreover, orange/ginger cats are not considered a breed per se, but rather a color pattern -- and Simba might develop little black "freckles" on his nose, lips or eye margins as he gets older (between 3-4 yrs. of age).  So if that happens, not to worry when they start to appear.  It's pretty common.  Most "red cats" also have warm, loving personalities, at the same time they they have an independent streak and often want to be the dominant member of the family hierarchy. 

He sure is a cutie!  Love that picture of the two of you together!!!

He looks just like my boy ! He was found and we had no idea of the breed either

OMG, LucyMae, they really do look alike! Your baby is absolutely precious. I'm sure Simba would be blushing from all your compliments, everyone! 

My little monster is between 5 and 8 pounds for certain, as I compared him to my hand weights of those weights. He feels between 6 and 7 pounds. He and Nala are both getting a chunk in the gut, but not fat. They are still in their first year, so I'm not worried about them eating too much at this point. I know that for the first 6 months they are supposed to be given food whenever they are hungry because they grow the most then. It's about time to start cutting back on the wet food, but we always leave dry food for them.

Does anyone know if these big ginger cats are prone to runny noses? Simba gets actual boogers in his nose that I either wipe gently with a tissue on my fingertip or occasionally have him rid himself with a little nasal stimulation from a cotton swab in the form of a sneeze. it may sound mean, but if I didn't do this, his nose would be crusted closed or more congested than it is.

Nala gets very crusty eyes and thick mucus that accumulates under her lower lid. It's been that way ever since she had the upper respiratory infection but she hasn't had the infection for months now. Maybe she just naturally gets gunky eyes and a crusty nose. I also have to wiper her eyes several times a day and rid her nose of the crust around the edges. I thought cats closed their noses by licking them a lot.

BTW, I need everyone to know that Simba cuddles my leg by rolling over against it and begging for belly rubs very early this morning and when I couldn't give him enough he got on my chest, lied down, put his paws on my cheeks and nuzzled the heck out of my fave for a few minutes. It was the most precious affection he's given me to date. He's sleeping on my bed beside me as I type this. It's amazing how strongly cats can bond to a chosen human and I feel incredibly lucky that he chose me.

Hi TheMelyssak,  your kitties sound like major cuddlebugs. Lucky you!   Your morning routine sounds great.    

On a different note, if both Nala and Simba are getting runny noses, and one or other them is showing runny/crusty eyes but you don't think they have a URI have you considered feline herpes virus?  A huge % of cats have it and never show any signs, but some do.   I think vets can test for it but mine here in the UK says they don't rely on that and go more on presenting symptoms.  Runny noses, runny eyes, sneezing, sometimes sore mouth.  If you have a look around the health forum there are a whole load of threads about it, and many posts including from me as I joined the site when my boy was diagnosed with it (he's nearly 3 now but will have had it since he was born).  

Might be worth you starting a thread of your own asking what people think in the Health Forum?  Stephanietx esp. seems to have loads of experience and knowledge about FHV and posts a lot there.  If they do have this virus the positive thing is you can give them something called L Lysine that doesn't cost a fortune and it helps keep them well and symptom free by blocking the virus!  (People use it too for the human variation - and no it doesn't pass between species).

Good luck in having health and happy kitties:-)  Get rid of those runny noses and crusty eyes nice and quick what ever is causing them.  

Thanks for your advice, MServant.

So, Simba is now 6 months old and he weighs 8 pounds! He's going to be ENORMOUS!


Later that same night, he jumped up on my bed, crawled over the bandanna I had been wearing earlier, and fell fast asleep. :3

I just wanted to get in on the ginger cat action. 

^ Aww, such a pretty kitty!

I'm convinced I'm raising a baby tiger! XD

He'll be 7 months old in a week or two and he weighs 9.4 lbs! He's putting on an average of 0.2-0.3 lbs per week. His tail was 12.25 inches long when I measures it a week or two ago. He's showing no signs of slowing down his growth, as of yet. In fact, he's had many spurts where it seems like I can notice a different in his size in a mere matter of days.

This was taken a couple days ago.

He is awesome! Look at those huge paws (reminds me of my Ragdoll's paws, LOL).

Makes you wonder about his parents or if it is just some quirk all his own? What is his personality like? My guy has no idea that he is big... and, like the internet sensation, Maru, will just jump into any box, no matter how small.

He really is a beauty! We have about 20 colony cats and not a ginger among them. All of this talk of large cats reminds me of what my hubby said last week about one of our inside boys.

He asked me if i had noticed that Trouper had lost weight. I told him i had not noticed, maybe he should weigh him. The cat weighed 18 lbs. !

The last time i weighed him he was 13 lbs.

Thank you both. I'm very proud of my son. He's overcome quite a bit since we got him. Illnesses, medications, a current illness, and being traumatized at the vet by a large akita which made him terrified of being in the cat carrier ever since. Wow, 18 lbs is huge! That's a lot of cats! Are they fixed, sweetthangtx?

Yeah, NBrazil, his paws have always been huge. His digits are thick and tall, and his claws are broad and not as needle-pointed as Nala's. She has small, dainty paws. Simba's personality is curious, not the brightest tool in the shed, doesn't know just how big he is, a little reckless at times (he will jump onto things or jump after his toys when I dangle them without always calculating how he will land,) gentleness, with a streak of defiance. I looked up cat communication and devised a way to intimidate him so he gets off places he isn't supposed to be with a mix of staring, mock charges and hisses with raising my voice a little when I say ,'Down!!" or, "No!" or, "Off!" Usually, he complies and I tell him he's a good boy when he gets down. Sometimes he'll look at me and chirp, walking in a way that says he wants to rub against my arm and wants me to pet him, and blatantly remains where he is. He also can get incredibly affectionate when he wants it and lets me hold and snuggle him in my arms. He's getting more independent as he's getting older, but still holds me in very high respect and comforts me when I'm feeling depression or anxiety by letting me pet him and snuggle, even if he doesn't want to be bothered at the time.

I don't know anything about his parents, but he did have a sibling in his cage when my parents adopted him. We don't like separating siblings but we already had Nala (who lost her sister when they were both very sick after we got them) and we couldn't take a third cat. I was told Simba was bigger than his sibling, who looked rather runty and had some black coloration in (her?) stripes. It's hard to tell from some of the photos, but Simba isn't as red as typical orange tabbies. He has brown-tinted orange fur down his back and on his tail rings.

Toward our female Nala, one month his senior, he sometimes tries to push her around and occasionally even tried to mount her, but she fights back without hurting him. She won't let him mate with her, seeing as how they are both fixed so she will never go into heat and let him. When I play with them, they take turns if I'm using the shoe string. If it's a sock, Nala sometimes hisses at him and he backs away, but he hisses at her if she tries to take his ping pong ball.

I just took this photo, which illustrates how much bigger Simba is than Nala. Nala's rate of growth has slowed down but not stopped, but Simba's hasn't I estimate he'll be between 11 and 12 lbs by the end of the year. Nala is scared of the bathroom scale I use, so she won't let me weigh her directly. She's between 7 and 8 lbs, the average for her age.

I have an update. Simba has grown a lot in the past week. He's gone from 9.4 lbs to 9.8 and now sits 14.25 inches tall! I looked at him sitting on the couch next to me last night and noticed that his head looked a lot smaller compared to his body than before and he just looked higher. Now he's a nearly 10 lb 7 month old kitten! He's has several growth spurts since we got him and he doesn't seem to be slowing down at all, yet. Anyone have any idea when male red tabbies typically slow down their growth?