What makes a tabby colour

Never seen our kittens kitter mates nor her mum or dad, so I have always wondered how she would have got her tabby coat. Would both parents have had to be tabby coat and would all of her litter have been tabby too ?

daisyD said:

Never seen our kittens kitter mates nor her mum or dad, so I have always wondered how she would have got her tabby coat. Would both parents have had to be tabby coat and would all of her litter have been tabby too ?

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Your question about this lovely Brown Mackerel Tabby, despite its seeming simplicity - is exceedingly complex.  Without offering a reply whose coherency might depend upon a particular background in genetics, let me offer this straightforward explanation, found, surprisingly on Wikipedia:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Genes+involved+in+fur+pattern+and+shading&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Simply clicking on the bold blue link, "Genes involved in fur pattern and shading," should answer most of your questions.  If you still have questions after absorbing this, come back - there are several members who read this section regularly who can answer just about any query you might have.

.She's truly gorgeous, by the way.

.

Tabby patterning is a dominate trait, so both parents don't have to be tabby to get tabby kittens, and even if they are both tabby you may not get all tabby kittens. For example, a pair of feral/strays that had kittens at my house were a brown tabby and white male and a black female. Their kittens were a brown tabby and white, a black, and a black and white. Another example, my brown tabby male, and brown tabby and white female had one solid brown tabby, a brown and white tabby, a black and white, and a black. Here is a basic run down of genetic for cat coats. http://www.cfa.org/Breeders/CatColorsGenetics/BasicFelineGenetics.aspx

Ive never known what colour she is (I know sounds Dillon) but she sometimes looks more grey but brown shades in the sun ! She has white and also a pink colour too ! The pattern on her tummy is spotty like ! Her back looked black when when first got her but grey / brown stripes come through now ! So is she a brown mAckerel tabby then?

daisyD said:

Ive never known what colour she is (I know sounds Dillon) but she sometimes looks more grey but brown shades in the sun ! She has white and also a pink colour too ! The pattern on her tummy is spotty like ! Her back looked black when when first got her but grey / brown stripes come through now ! So is she a brown mAckerel tabby then?

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Its a maze of cat fanciers language.   First, grey is called for blue.  Perhaps because there IS often a bluish nuance.

Second.  A tabby whom is grey, and has darker grey tabby stripes,  is called for blue tabby.

BUT.  If the stripes are black on this blue cat, its instead called for brown tabby.  Even if the cat is mostly grayish - ie blue.  But to be fair, with this combination, its common there is some brownish shine, so its not sheer madness...

There may also be a reddish shine, sometimes called for rufism.  its NOT true red color, he doesnt carry the gene for red color.

Last. Its common tabbies do have some spots on the tummy.  So to see what sort of pattern of tabby it is, we always look on the sides.

As others said; tabby is dominant, so at least one parent must have been a tabby.  Because you become a tabby as soon you do have the gene.

There are exceptions, most notably all white cats.  As white is even more dominant, and it is fully possible an all white cat has ALSO the tabby gene, but its covered by all teh white...

White is actually a masking colour if you look at a tuxedo cat the cats is actually a black cat but the white masks portions of the black. Some pure white cats show bits of their true colors as kittens but lose them as they mature. When two dominant genes are used such as white and aguatti (this is what tabby gene is called) you will wind up with a litter of some pure tabby and some bicolour tabby you may also have some solid colors as well since the white cat's true colour is masked.

Think this is right been a while since I took animal sciences so I'm a bit rusty on genetics.