Sophie Is Changing Colour.

I've noticed that Sophie is getting a lot darker as she gets older. I took these first pictures of Sophie, her brother Albert and another stray kitten, Jiro, this time last year.



As you can see apart from her mask, paws and tail she was almost white.

These were taken in January.


Recovering with her buddy Heidi after they had both been spayed


 Squinting in the sunlight.

These are some photos I took today. As you can see she is much darker.



I wonder if she is going to keep getting darker as she gets older? She's about 18 months old now. Is it because the cold weather is coming? Do you think her summer coat will be paler? Maybe it's from all the sunbathing, she loves to sleep in the sun.


But then so does 'Bert and he is still as white as ever.


I've been describing her as "Chocolate and Cream" but maybe there is a better term for her colour? 

Thanks for reading and for any information.

Pointed cats do tend to get darker as they get older. My Silka is very dark now, but was almost white as a kitten.The darker colors develop according to temperature (cooler=darker), so they should be lighter in the summer and darker in the winter, in general.

She looks more Snowshoe-ish and he looks more Siamese-ish so that might explain why he's not getting as dark in the body.

Our snowshoe mix Edwina is also about 18 months old and she seems to have gotten a little darker in recent months, too. She's a seal point; it looks her coloring is similar to Sophie's. Edwina's sister Ireland is a lynx mix who looks a bit like your Albert. She has very defined stripes all over and doesn't seem to be getting darker. We adopted the cats when they were 10 months old so I have no idea how light they might have been when they were young.

My Oliver was a DLH mixed-breed cat, more or less chocolate point. All of his life, he would change colour. His arms, legs, and tail darkening or lightening. His coat would change, too. One season he grew tufts of fur behind both of his ears. By the time he passed away, his chin and upper lip were rather beige. My mother used to call him the walking mood ring. He was a good boy.

Willowy said:

Pointed cats do tend to get darker as they get older. My Silka is very dark now, but was almost white as a kitten.The darker colors develop according to temperature (cooler=darker), so they should be lighter in the summer and darker in the winter, in general.

She looks more Snowshoe-ish and he looks more Siamese-ish so that might explain why he's not getting as dark in the body.

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Thank you Willowy. I like the term "Chocolate and Cream Snowshoe". 

I've heard that the colder the weather the darker the coat. It gets down to -15C here in the winter, she's going to be the same colour as Jiro by next spring.

LisaHE said:

 
Our snowshoe mix Edwina is also about 18 months old and she seems to have gotten a little darker in recent months, too. She's a seal point; it looks her coloring is similar to Sophie's. Edwina's sister Ireland is a lynx mix who looks a bit like your Albert. She has very defined stripes all over and doesn't seem to be getting darker. We adopted the cats when they were 10 months old so I have no idea how light they might have been when they were young.

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I had a closer look at your avatar photo, they do look a lot like Albert and Sophie. I think they were about 6 months old when they first started following their Mum to our house to be fed. I'm not sure where they got their colouring from, Mum was a dark grey and black tabby and Dad was Gin kun, the cat in my avatar. 

Norachan said:

 
I had a closer look at your avatar photo, they do look a lot like Albert and Sophie. I think they were about 6 months old when they first started following their Mum to our house to be fed. I'm not sure where they got their colouring from, Mum was a dark grey and black tabby and Dad was Gin kun, the cat in my avatar. 

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Gin kun is a beautiful cat! I just looked through photos of our cats... I can definitely see how they've darkened over the months, since that avatar photo was taken in December. We've recently noticed in particular that they both have dark patches on their hips.

P.S. I also noticed, looking at the old photos, that Edwina, the snowshoe, didn't have markings on her belly when she was younger. That's probably where her darkening is most pronounced.

I had a pure white Cat, except for she had a "Mitsubishi" logo in gray on her forehead.  As she got older the mark got lighter and lighter - then it was gone altogether, and she was white as snow all over. <3

LisaHE said:

 
Gin kun is a beautiful cat! I just looked through photos of our cats... I can definitely see how they've darkened over the months, since that avatar photo was taken in December. We've recently noticed in particular that they both have dark patches on their hips.

P.S. I also noticed, looking at the old photos, that Edwina, the snowshoe, didn't have markings on her belly when she was younger. That's probably where her darkening is most pronounced.

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Now that I think of it, Sophie started to get dark patches on her hips first of all and that darker colour has spread all over her. Albert still doesn't look any different to the way he did when he was a kitten, just the palest grey markings on his paws, tail and mask.

As Willowy mentioned, the color point cats will darken in colder temperatures. They will also darken more where the skin is cooler, and if they get a little over weight they will darken as well. The hips, especially, will be darker than the body on most adults cats. At Sophie's age, she is finished growing as far as her build -- all the bones are as tall/wide as they are going to get! -- but she will continue to fill out a bit until two or three years old. Think of it like teenagers: I reached my full size, skeletal-wise, at 13 years old but I continued to fill out in the hips and bust etc until 16. Sophie is filling out now. During this time, the more "padded" areas like her hips will darken.

My oldest Siamese had a slow but steady weight gain going on, and though she is now slimmed down again she did turn very very dark. Practically a black on chocolate, not a seal and cream anymore, haha. My two snowshoe girls are three years, going on four, and are a little darker than your Sophie is right now. My youngest seal point, is just turning 2, but she's got some "junk in the trunk" and her hips are darker than my older snowshoe girls who are more petite.