Basic Genetics: Tabbies

Non-Silver Tabbies

What's about the Silver Tabbies ? And what's about gene S for Piebald Spotting ?

Example 1:

Example 2
You breed Orientals, and here you want to breed for silver tabbies, but you don't have a silver queen:

• If the queen is tabby she will carry at least A- ii plus tabby genes.
• If she is not tabby she carries aa ii plus tabby genes.

The tabby genes your female carries depend on which tabby cats are behind on her.
What you need is a silver tabby male. But if the male is not homozygous for silver or for agouti you have to think about the following:

• The male is heterozygous for Silver - has Ii.
  There not all the kittens will be silver tabbies, you'll have half silver tabby kittens and half non-silver tabby kittens.
• The male is not homozygous for agouti - carries Aa.
  There half of the kittens will be tabby, the other half will be non-tabby.
  And if the male is heterozygous for silver, you'll get solid kittens, non-silver tabby kittens, smoke kittens and silver tabby kittens.
• The male is also heterozygous for his tabby pattern - has f.e. Ttb.
  There you'll get mackerel kittens and - depending what your female carries (only mackerel T or also blotched tb) - you may also get blotched kittens.
  And now think about the above mentioned items, if the male is not homozygous for silver and not homozygous for agouti, you may have solid kittens, non-silver tabby kittens with all tabby patterns, smoke kittens and silver tabby kittens with all tabby patterns.

At least here you have to make up your mind for which tabby pattern you want to go.

• If You want to breed silver spotted Orientals you have to use a silver spotted male. But it would be better to start already with a spotted queen and not to try to introduce the spotting pattern, too. Remember that spotting is not a separate gene and you will have to cope with the following facts:
  • You might get other tabby patterns, too - it depends which tabby patterns both the male and the female carry.
    But those tabby patterns might not be so clear, especially on the mackerel tabby the mackerel stripes might be broken up.
  • The spots might not be so clear and the pattern gets blurred, especially in the silver tabby spotted it is always a problem to get clear distinct spots.
• If you want to breed silver mackerel Orientals you should take a silver mackerel male. If all the kittens are silver tabby mackerel depends on the already above explained conditions.
  • You might get mackerel tabby kittens and blotched kittens depending which tabby genes both the parents carry.
  • And all these tabby kittens can be with silver and without silver, depending wether the male is homozygous or heterozygous for silver.
  • Be also aware that you even might get spotted kittens, if both parents are heterozygous for the tabby pattern - have f.e. Ttb - and at least one of the parents tends to have a broken up mackerel pattern.
• If you want to breed silver tabby blotched Orientals, you might use a silver mackerel tabby male which is heterozygous for his tabby pattern - carries Ttb, but better would be you use a silver tabby blotched male, because at least he is homozygous for the tabby pattern - carries tbtb.
  • But still not all kittens might be silver tabby blotched, if your female is heterozygous for the tabby pattern - carries f.e. Ttb.
  • And if the male is not homozygous for silver and not homozygous for agouti you can get the same colours as already mentioned above.
• If you want to breed silver tabby ticked Orientals, you should use a silver tabby ticked male which should carry at least one gene Ta-, better would be TaTa.
  But it depends on your female still which tabby patterns you can get, bear in mind that Ta is incomplete dominant.
  It would be wise to start already with a ticked tabby queen, because to breed ticked tabby cats is not as easy as one might think:
  • If one of the parents doesn't carry ticked tabby, but carries T or tb, the ticked tabby kittens might show too many stripes on their body, especially in the silvers the ticking of the body will show darker patches on the flancs.
  • The tabby pattern of the non-ticked tabby kittens might get blurred and not be so distinct.

Consequently breeding spotted cats should be done with spotted cats, otherwise the spots might get diffuse and the mackerel tabbies - if you get some - might have broken up stripes. Consequently breeding ticked tabby cats should be done only with ticked tabby cats.
Mixing up mackerel tabbies with blotched tabbies can easier be done, because interference on their pattern is not as heavy as on the spotted or ticked tabby cats, and their patterns are mostly distinct.

Example 3
You want to breed cinnamon or fawn silver spotted cats. That's one of the most difficult tasks, because it is very hard to get clear distinct cinnamon or fawn spots on a silver white underground.
Mixing up non-silver spotted with silver spotted causes sometimes the following problems:

• The coat colour of the non-silver spotted might get a cold tone. The base of the hair might be greyish.
• The silver spotted cats might show rufism (brownish tinge in the silver white ground).

A lot of breeders have made the experience that the cinnamon spotting pattern gets clearer if you use so called cinnamon carriers.
You cross a black silver spotted with a cinnamon spotted, because all the kittens out of this crossing will carry the cinnamon gene. And keep a black silver spotted cinnamon carrier.
This procedure you do twice:

• You could use the same male for 2 different females to produce black silver spotted kittens which carry the cinnamon gene. And then keep a black silver spotted female and male and cross those cinnamon carriers, the resulting cinnamon silver spotted kittens will show clearer spots.
• If you don't want to do a crossing between half siblings you can use 2 different females and 2 different males and keep from one litter a female and from the other one a male.

How many cats you need depends which cats you can use for breeding with black silver spotted cinnamon carriers. If you are lucky to have already a black silver spotted female and can cross her with a black (silver) spotted male which carries also cinnamon you don't need to produce your own cinnamon carriers. But in practice mostly you don't have your own silver spotted cinnamon carriers already.

[Back to gene T for Tabby patterns]

� European Cat Fancy 1997-1999. Please respect the Copyright. Please contact us at [email protected].
Last modified on  99-01-16