Adopted two sibling kittens- any ideas on breed?

[pennybo0711]

Hello all, i have recently adopted two kittens from a shelter. They are siblings, the grey one is the girl, Penny, and the other is her brother Bowie.
I am curious about their breed. Their fur is unusual right now, Penny is solid grey, with the exception to her tail which gets dark toward the tip. Bowie is more of an ashy color, black (tinges of brown stripes) with grey tipped fur. I am thinking his adult coat may eventually be more solid. They both seem to be getting yellowish/green eyes, but hard to tell as they are only months or so.
I am thinking they have a little Russian Blue and tabby (due to the ghost striping).
A picture of them are attached, let me know your thoughts!View media item 290757

 

[peterbald love]

Your kitties look like very cute Domestic Shorthairs!

 

[kat hamlin]

Nice picture of two adorable kittens!

They look to be DSH or Domestic Short Hairs.  This is a catch-all term for a cat of mixed ancestry (a mutt) with short hair.  They still have some kitten fluff but looks like it should go away as they age.

Penny is a blue tabby.  Her tabby markings are fainter than some but if you look closely you can see the tabby stripes on her legs and the "M" on her forehead.

Bowie looks like a black to me.  It's not uncommon for them as kittens to have some smokiness or occasional white hairs.  He may have tabby stripes that are faintly visible, especially in the sun.  Tabby markings are genetically distinct from color so they can co-occur with black coloring; they just don't show up well unless the cat also has a significant reddening factor, which makes the coat appear brown with black stripes, our so-called brown tabbies.  If there is just a small amount of reddening along with the tabby, you will see faint stripes in the otherwise black coat.  Few domestic cats are a solid, dark black with zero reddening because they are random breeders.  Theoretically, a black with zero reddening could be a tabby but you wouldn't be able to tell visually.

Frankly, I rarely see black domestic kittens without some hint of tabby in them.  It's a common pattern.  However, your babies are beautiful just the same.

"Tabby" per se is not a breed but a pattern of striping.  Russian Blue is a breed characterized primarily by their solid blue coloring but they are not terribly common, especially roaming at large, and domestic cats can be solid blue as well, so it is my guess that your cats don't have any particular lineage associated with any purebred cats.  That is ok, though!  They make great pets and are just as deserving of love as a purebred might be.

 

[kkoerner]

I wouldn't call Penny a blue tabby. She looks like a blue domestic shorthair with some ghost striping to me!

Bowie is a black domestic shorthair.

If the kitten fuzz doesn't go away, and that little black especially has longer hair than normal he'd be a domestic medium hair. But, I think Kat is right and they will both lose the fuzz and be DSH's.

They are adorable!

 

[missmolly86]

They are so cute!!

 

[merlin2000]

Beautiful kittens I love their names.

Bowie does look a bit more fluffy