Help with my cat?

vipn

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Hi. I would just like to ask for your opinion regarding my cat's newly born kittens. She's a Siamese cat (pictured below) born October last year. When she was in heat 2 months ago, we decided to mate her with a family friend's Persian cat (also pictured below). We kept them in a room from July 31 to August 3. After that, she never went out of our house.

Fast forward, she gave birth to 3 healthy kittens on October 4. However, they're all mostly black with some brown/orange streaks. I'll also post a picture of them below. No one from our family has a knowledge on cat breeding so we expected for the kittens to be either orange or white, not black. Is that possible? Or did my cat get pregnant with a different cat? Thanks!

Our cat

Family friend's cat

The newly born kittens
 
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StefanZ

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Lets call on our members most eager to answer questions of hereditary of cat colors!   :)

I see lefty will prob be a black tortie - he has surely also somw white somewhere. It may be just a patch, or even a few white hairs.

@Willowy    @GemsGem  

Ps.  I hope you will spay and neuter both parents, now when they both had done their duty.  As I understand you arent a breeder, none of them is anywhere purebred.
 
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GemsGem

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Yes, they are the right colors from that mating :nod:


Your girl is blue colorpoint - (colorpoint means the Siamese pattern of lighter body color with darker feet, face and tail)
The colorpoint pattern is recessive, this means both parents must have or carry the colorpoint gene to produce colorpoint kittens.
If only one parent has or carries the gene then none of the kittens will show this pattern. The father of these kittens does not carry the colorpoint gene that's why you have no white kittens.

Blue is the dilute color of black. Blue is also recessive, so this also requires both parents to have or carry the dilute gene for the kittens to be dilute eg blue.
The father of the these kittens also does not carry the dilute gene, so that's why there is no blue kittens.

I'm guessing the kittens are all boys ;) You see male kittens take their color from the mom only. Female kittens take a color gene from each parent.

These kittens being male took their color genes from their mother only. They could not take her dilute form of blue due to farther not carrying the dilute gene. So this means they take on the dominant black color from her blue color.

If you had females kittens they would have taken a color gene from each parent. So you would have got torties ( red and black ) They would have taken black from mother and red from father.
 
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vipn

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Thanks @GemsGem! I actually learned a lot. What are the kitten's breed now though? If it's alright, can you post a picture of what they'll look like when they grow up?
 
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GemsGem

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Thanks @GemsGem! I actually learned a lot. What are the kitten's breed now though? If it's alright, can you post a picture of what they'll look like when they grow up?
Glad to be of help :D

The kittens are not any breed. You see to be an actual pedigree breed, they need to be purebred.
To be purebred means cats of a recognized same breed, strain, or kind without admixture of other blood over many generations. In simpler terms, this means that the animal is of the same bloodline ( breed ) back through generations. Essentially, if you look at the cats family tree, such as for a purebred Siamese, you would see that the cats parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were all Siamese as well.

Crossing a Siamese to Persian does not create a new breed. The offspring to a mating like this will vary greatly in looks from each other. They will not all look the same as an adult. Some will look more like a Siamese and some will look more like a Persian.

Also the pics that you posted of the mother and father. These are very beautiful cats :rbheart: But you do realise that neither of them are purebred themselves.
 
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vipn

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@GemsGem So some of them will be longhaired and some will not?
 

StefanZ

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@GemsGem So some of them will be longhaired and some will not?
To be longhaired, both parents must give longhaired gene.

I suppose the father is longhaired, as you call him persian.  The mom is shorthaired.   So the kittens will be probably shorthaired.  

Unless the mom deliver the necessary lonhaired gene (she may have it although shorthaired, the gene for long hair is recessive).   In that case some will be longhaired some shorthaired.

But they all will be carriers of the longhaire gene, after the father.
 
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vipn

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To be longhaired, both parents must give longhaired gene.
I suppose the father is longhaired, as you call him persian.  The mom is shorthaired.   So the kittens will be probably shorthaired.  

Unless the mom deliver the necessary lonhaired gene (she may have it although shorthaired, the gene for long hair is recessive).   In that case some will be longhaired some shorthaired.

But they all will be carriers of the longhaire gene, after the father.
As far as I know, our cat's parents are all shorthaired so I think there's a low probability that she's a carrier.

According to my dad, all the kittens are female. Idk whether to believe him or not. Haha.
 

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According to my dad, all the kittens are female. Idk whether to believe him or not. Haha.
It looks like the one on the left has some red mixed in the black, which makes her a tortoiseshell (tortie) and almost certainly a girl. Is there any red in the other two kittens? Sometimes it's only a tiny spot. If there isn't any red, they are almost certainly boys. It can be really tricky trying to sex kittens that young. Even breeders have difficulty telling which is which sometimes.
 

GoldyCat

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It looks like the one on the left has some red mixed in the black, which makes her a tortoiseshell (tortie) and almost certainly a girl. Is there any red in the other two kittens? Sometimes it's only a tiny spot. If there isn't any red, they are almost certainly boys. It can be really tricky trying to sex kittens that young. Even breeders have difficulty telling which is which sometimes.
More photos of the kittens


I guess the first two are females and the last one's a male? 
It's possible, but it's hard to see colors accurately on a computer monitor. What I see may not be exactly the same as what others see. We really need to see their backsides to be able to tell, and at such a young age even that can be tricky.
 
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vipn

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It's possible, but it's hard to see colors accurately on a computer monitor. What I see may not be exactly the same as what others see. We really need to see their backsides to be able to tell, and at such a young age even that can be tricky.
If I understand it correctly, as long as I find red spots on the kittens, they're 100% sure to be female?
 

GoldyCat

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It's possible, but it's hard to see colors accurately on a computer monitor. What I see may not be exactly the same as what others see. We really need to see their backsides to be able to tell, and at such a young age even that can be tricky.
If I understand it correctly, as long as I find red spots on the kittens, they're 100% sure to be female?
Not quite. Let's see if I can give you a quick genetics lesson without making you too dizzy. :para3:

Gender is determined by a pair of chromosomes, X and Y. Females get one X from the mother and one X from the father. Males get an X from the mother and Y from the father. The genes for red and black colors occur only on the X chromosome. (The white gene is on a different chromosome and is not affected by the X/Y combination). The father can pass on only one color, red or black, to a girl. He does not contribute anything to the color of a boy. If the mother is red and the father is black, the resulting girls will have a combination of red and black (tortie or calico) and boys will be red. If the mother is black and the father is red the girls will still have both colors while the boys are black only. Two red parents will produce all red offspring, both girls and boys. If the mother has both red and black you have more possible combinations because she can pass either color on to both boys and girls.

Summary: each X chromosome carries the gene for one color only. Therefore males can have only one color, either red or black, because they have only one X chromosome. Girls may have both red and black because they have two X chromosomes.

Now here comes the part that makes it not quite 100%. There is a genetic anomaly that occurs in which a male receives 3 chromosomes, XXY. The Y makes him a male and the two X's make it possible for him to have both red and black. I don't know the numbers off the top off my head, but it's a very low percentage of all births, and the great majority of those two-color males are sterile.

Statistically, if your kittens have both red and black in them they are almost certainly female. If one is solid black it could be either male or female. (Remember that white is a separate issue and can occur in combination with any of the other colors).
 
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vipn

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Hi again! The kittens just opened their eyes 4 days ago and all of them have blue eyes. I've read that this is not necessarily their true eye color as it will change when they're 3 to 4 months old. I would just like to know what are the possible eye color of the kittens. I want to know more about the genetics of it all. Thanks!

PS: Our cat's eye is blue.
 
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GemsGem

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Hi again! The kittens just opened their eyes 4 days ago and all of them have blue eyes. I've read that this is not necessarily their true eye color as it will change when they're 3 to 4 months old. I would just like to know what are the possible eye color of the kittens. I want to know more about the genetics of it all. Thanks!

PS: Our cat's eye is blue.
Check out this link below. It explains about coat colors and eye colors ;)

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/286325/this-is-neat-cat-coat-color-chart
 
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vipn

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Hello! The kittens are now 5 weeks old and they have become so playful. 

Can anybody help me identify if the kittens are longhaired or not? I know that they're only gonna be longhaired if our cat was a carrier of the gene. Here our some pictures, in case it would help.

Candy (Female)


Diggy (Female)



Perry (Male)


 

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Cute family!

Not sure why the sex matters this young or eye color or fur length. But as mentioned none are any breed they are called "short haired domestics" like their parents. Dads hair is not very long.  IMHO he does not look Persian.

Right now they need simply to stay with mom to grow and learn.

Please do the right thing and get all of them all spayed and neutered as soon as you can and work on getting them homes.

Millions of cats have to die each year for lack of homes. There are simply too many.
 
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GoldyCat

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It's hard to tell from the pictures, but the kittens with longer hair in the ears may turn out to be longhairs. I usually go more by what the tails look like, and most of your pictures don't show the tails.
 
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