What age is my ragdoll?

I rescued a ragdoll, Skye, back in March. Skye was a queen surrendered by a "breeder that wanted out of the business." There were 5 other ragdolls at the same SPCA surrendered by the same person.

All I was told is that Skye was not socialised. I had to work with her as she was very anxious and spent a lot of her first few weeks hiding. Now she follows us around like a dog and will run to greet people at the door, even strangers.

The SPCA spayed her and did the health check up etc. They estimated her to be 4 years old. But I wonder how accurate that is.

Skye weighed 6.12 lbs when we got her, which is extremely tiny for a 4 year old ragdoll. She now weighs 8 lbs. Also, her colour seems to be darkening... which I think ragdolls have their full colour by the time they are 4, right?

Taken the day we brought her home..


A recent..

They estimated age based on her teeth I would imagine.
Sometimes, if they have been in a bad situation for long enough, their teeth can appear "older" than they are...
However, what it sounds like to me is that she was underweight and the weight gain is because of that, and also was probably bred early...and when that happens in can stunt their growth, so she is small.
Her color doesn't really look that much darker in the second pic, just lighting. But being a blue point, she won't get that dark anyway.
There is also a possibility of her not being purebred (and size also be related to that) because any GOOD breeder would never surrender their animals they are retiring to a shelter. They would adopt them out to great homes. And on that note, many "breeders" like this one must have been, either have cats who are not purebred, or are of poor quality, and are just trying to make money with breeding.

She doesn't look like a young cat, and I would guess that the 4 year old age is probably pretty close. You could get second opinion from a good vet though, who would be able to look at all the things necessary to determine age...like teeth.

Thank you. That makes total sense about the growth being stunted. The colour is a bit darker, but it is also expanding. She only had colour on her nose and between eyes, but now it has moved higher and includes her whisker area.


I adopted her from a really small town and had to drive 4 hours to get there. The SPCA there was tiny. They did tell me that the breeder was an old woman who probably never had visitors. Wish I knew Skye's history as she has a few issues and I feel like I am flying blind.

Here are some of the other ragdolls surrendered by same breeder.

Hi!
I take my kitties to a feline only veterinarian and she taught me a bit about guessing ages.
My 6yr cat has always had remarkable teeth/gums and breath has never been bad.
However, my 1yr cat has developed tartar early on and she has stinky breath.
The vet told me that even though it can offer somewhat of an estimate when it comes to discovering a cats age, it's not set in stone (as you can tell from my cats). At best you can get an estimate like 4-6, senior, kitten, ect.

kaliandloki said:

I rescued a ragdoll, Skye, back in March. Skye was a queen surrendered by a "breeder that wanted out of the business." There were 5 other ragdolls at the same SPCA surrendered by the same person.

All I was told is that Skye was not socialised. I had to work with her as she was very anxious and spent a lot of her first few weeks hiding. Now she follows us around like a dog and will run to greet people at the door, even strangers.

The SPCA spayed her and did the health check up etc. They estimated her to be 4 years old. But I wonder how accurate that is.

Skye weighed 6.12 lbs when we got her, which is extremely tiny for a 4 year old ragdoll. She now weighs 8 lbs. Also, her colour seems to be darkening... which I think ragdolls have their full colour by the time they are 4, right?

Taken the day we brought her home..

A recent..

IMG_20161127_115817.jpg

• kaliandloki
• Dec 11, 2016

Click to expand...

K kaliandloki

The point gene is temperature-dependent. And the points show up on the "cold spots" of a cat's body. Often times, pointed cats' points (and the rest of their bodies) will darken in the winter time because it gets colder (even inside), it is especially noticable in blue-points.

Thanks for everyone's input. This is technically my first winter with her as I adopted her the end of March.