Need some opinions, long post but please read

[katladykaylei]

PART ONE: need help identifying possible fathers to a litter of kittens



So, about 1.5 year ago my (red/black chimera) tortie (named Puddin) had a litter that consisted of: 1 female tortie , 1 male red tabby (typical because mom carries black & red genes) and heres where im confused, there was also 1 male brown tabby. Im sure the simple answer is the father is a brown tabby, but how would this work genetically? Did mom pass down her red/black gene recessively? Is that possible for a tortie?



PART TWO: might help give hints toward the father by telling a little more about the future genetics of the tortie in the same litter. MAINLY info regarding my mystery kitten (Cola) that I would like to hear some opinions on. <<PICTURE INCLUDED OF COLA WHEN HIS MARKINGS WERE BEGINNING TO BECOME MORE DISTINCT>>



I gave the tortie of the litter mentioned in part 1 to a close friend (she named her Mars) My friend later found a stray red tabby & took it in for the night thinking it was also female.. it was not. Mars got pregnant & had a fairly interesting litter. 2/5 kittens (1 tortie & 1 black) did not make it past the first couple of days as Mars was young & sadly smothered them. (rip) The remaining kittens were 1 male red tabby, 1 FEMALE red tabby, and then 1 male mystery kitten.. this kitten was born solid black and with in a week he slowly started to turn white, causing me to believe he was either a smoke cat or he had a fever coat. As he got older his white coat slowly went back to black, after some research I found this is typical with a fever coat and that it can even take up to 2 years for the kittens true genetic coat to show. (Forgot to add I took in both male kittens once they were of age & ended up keeping this mystery kitten.) After the white undercoat seemed to be gone & he was black again, I noticed that he seemed to be slowly turning orange! When he was almost 6 months old I kept a close eye on him to see when he started spraying so I could take him to get nuetered.. but he never started spraying. At this point he did not have any markings on him but the deep red color was becoming more and more vibrant, this is when I first thought maybe he was a rare male tortie and wasnt spraying because he was sterile? A few months go by and we (my bf, me, our adult cat/Moe & mystery kitten/Cola) move in with my MIL where we have 3 indoor/outdoor cats (one of which is Puddin, grandmother to my mystery kitty). A few weeks after moving, all the cats have adjusted well to eachother, and my 2 cats after being indoor cats their whole lives start to go outside with the others & about 2 months later (Aug 2023) mystery cat is now 1 year old and FINALLY has started to spray, his overall reddish color has turned into more distinct patterns now still pushing me towards the fact he is a tortie. I know male torties are known to have health issues due to their genectic abnormalities. Cola (mystery cat) has always been a low energy, very cuddly but not too playful cat, he also has always been quite small for his age & just seems to be developing slower than normal, his fur gets greasy sometimes despite constantly bathing himself, and lastly he has always seemed to have stomach issues like off/on diarrhea, horrid gas, accidents on the floor even though he is fully litter trained, etc. I DONT KNOWW!!! What do yall think?? Is he a tortie?? Is it too crazy to think his mom had an orange female AND a male tortie in the same litter?! Please help!! I'm very intruiged by this & would like to know if theres another possible explanation to my mystery baby, OH YEA AND HOW THE HELL DID MY TORTIE BIRTH A BROWN TABBY CAT

 

[IndyJones]

DMH domestic medium hair. Without papers a cat is not a particular breed. Please spay and neuter your cats. There's already so many kittens the shelters are over capacity.

 

[katladykaylei]

DMH domestic medium hair. Without papers a cat is not a particular breed. Please spay and neuter your cats. There's already so many kittens the shelters are over capacity.

I was not asking for the breed. My post is talking about if he is a tortoiseshell or not, and how my tortie female gave birth to a brown tabby (she was a stray we took in that was already pregnant) ALSO all 6 of my cats are fixed thank you very much. I am fully aware of the very abundant cat population, and have done alot to try and help my community with it. All of my cats are strays that we have taken in as our own, we found loving homes for any and all kittens we've ever come across, we have also taken multiple feral cats that are not ours and tnr them ourselves basically (trapped them, got them fixed & released them back to where they came from) please make sure you fully read posts before responding & especially before being hateful and telling me get my cats fixed when they are. thank you

 

[StefanZ]

Re the tabby... Tabby is dominant, so if a kitten has the tabby gene, it will always become a tabby (with few exceptions, feks all white covering).

But nobody said daddy is homozygot on tabby... A purebred would prob be, but with a moggie you dont know... So half of his kids tends to get the tabby gene, and half not...

That said, its fully possible the first litter had 2 different fathers, but its not necessary at all... They may have had the same moggie daddy...
(a female whom got out, may be mated by several males, sometimes even by all present males... And thus, her litter may have several different fathers. But surprising often, its just 1 biological father... The different coloring of kittens are explainable if you know some cat color and pattern genetics...

 

[IndyJones]

Im not being hateful, if you read this site is pro spay/neuter, we just care for the welfare of cats. Thats all it is.

He looks chocolate to me. It is very unusual for a male cat to be torti because it is tied to the x chromosome so he would be kleinfelter's (xxy) if it was torti. While extremly rare they also can have genetic defects from it mostly related to reproduction.

Brown tabby is a domminent gene so he could get it from either parrent.

 

[StefanZ]

Re the other, if its a male tortie? Please show us a photo of his forehead... Torties have surprising often a revealing red streak on top of the head... No rule, but surprising often, and this becomes often a give away.

 

[IndyJones]

Re the tabby... Tabby is dominant, so if a kitten has the tabby gene, it will always become a tabby (with few exceptions, feks all white covering).

But nobody said daddy is homozygot on tabby... A purebred would prob be, but with a moggie you dont know... So half of his kids tends to get the tabby gene, and half not...

That said, its fully possible the first litter had 2 different fathers, but its not necessary at all... They may have had the same moggie daddy...
(a female whom got out, may be mated by several males, sometimes even by all present males... And thus, her litter may have several different fathers. But surprising often, its just 1 biological father... The different coloring of kittens are explainable if you know some cat color and pattern genetics...

Different fathers, Indy and her brother (who I don't have) are both tabbies but Indy is blue and her brother is brown.

So since Indy has the recessive d/d it means both her parrents carried the dilute gene. Dilute brown is blue.
Her brother's father didn't carry the dilute gene so he was born brown.

Not sure if this is helpful but might give an example of the different fathers scenario at work.

 

[kashmir64]

Re the other, if its a male tortie?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the chance of a male tortie something like 1 in a million? And if he is, he is sterile.

 

[IndyJones]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the chance of a male tortie something like 1 in a million? And if he is, he is sterile.

Yes they are kllinefelter's cats.

 

[StefanZ]

Different fathers, Indy and her brother (who I don't have) are both tabbies but Indy is blue and her brother is brown.

So since Indy has the recessive d/d it means both her parrents carried the dilute gene. Dilute brown is blue.
Her brother's father didn't carry the dilute gene so he was born brown.

Not sure if this is helpful but might give an example of the different fathers scenario at work.

Now, if both parents were diluted (homozygot for that gene, d/d), so kitten will be diluted... But if one or both were heterozygot for dilutation gene, so some kittens will be diluted and some brown / black.