# orange girl kitties..



## ThreeCatzGirl (Jan 16, 2009)

Im watching Too Cute on animal planet right now and they showed a female orange tabby mom with her kittens 3 orange girls. 1 male tortie and 1 black tuxedo

now I thought orange tabbies were only male cats and torties were only females...


Ive only known male orange cats. My simba and the barn cat ringo also an orange tabby. my local animal shelter has a big orange male tabby in there cat room

the other shelters have female torties... 


just wondering...


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## marie73 (Jul 12, 2006)

There are exceptions in both cases. I have a friend with two orange girls. I think orange girls are more common than male calicos.



> Only one out of every 3,000 calico cats is male, according to a study by the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Missouri.


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## Carmel (Nov 23, 2010)

Genetically speaking orange female cats have about a 25% odds. I checked petfinder once and the math added up almost perfectly on that sample collection.

Calico males must be XXY (have an extra "girl" chromosome) in order to be calico. Very rare.


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## doodlebug (May 13, 2006)

There's an orange girl in my sig pic :lol: 

BTW...male calicos are sterile because of the extra chromosome.


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## Heather72754 (Nov 1, 2013)

Interesting, I never realized that.


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## ThreeCatzGirl (Jan 16, 2009)

I said tortie male not a calico


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## Carmel (Nov 23, 2010)

Tortie, torbie, calico... all the same. All cats that have both black and orange on their coats are female, unless they are males with XXY. Here is a helpful webpage: The Genetics of Calico Cats

What stumps me on it is the suggestion that black female cats make up 25% of females... but that is far from the case. There must be other genetic factors at play. But it does hold up in regards to orange and calico cats.


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## Marcia (Dec 26, 2010)

A solid orange female is somewhat rare but not as rare as a male calico. We just adopted out an all orange female.

View attachment 49961


View attachment 49969


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## NBrazil (May 16, 2013)

Jessie is my rescue "solid" orange female. Technically a red ticked tabby.

http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/a537/NBrazil/photo_zps7b4ba5d9.jpg

Don't know why photo isn't just showing up, I've tried every one of the links. Ah well.


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## Marcia (Dec 26, 2010)

NBrazil said:


> Jessie is my rescue "solid" orange female. Technically a red ticked tabby.
> 
> http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/a537/NBrazil/photo_zps7b4ba5d9.jpg
> 
> Don't know why photo isn't just showing up, I've tried every one of the links. Ah well.


Photo is fine. Is that a white paw in the back?


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## NBrazil (May 16, 2013)

Yep, back paws (legs) have substantial white, also under chin... typical. Some banding on her tail, but otherwise a pretty solid ticked orange. (You can see the white on my avatar.)


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## dt8thd (Jan 7, 2013)

Orange tabby females aren't especially _uncommon_, they're just less common than orange tabby males because a female cat needs to have 2 orange X chromosomes to be entirely orange, while a male only needs 1 orange X chromosome.

The picture below is of Tilly Mint, the matriarch from one of the feral colonies I TNR'ed last year. All of her kittens have been adopted, and she's currently being fostered/socialized by the colony caretaker. She has had a number of litters over the years, but of the cats that were in the colony when I became involved, 3 were orange tabbies, and all of those were male. They obviously inherited the orange X from Mom, since Dad (Luther) was a brown tabby. All of Tilly's female kittens have been torties, calicos, or torbies, which only makes sense, since they would have received one orange X from mom and one black X from Luther.


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## 21Rouge (Jul 20, 2013)

Our Luke is so an Orange Tabby male


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## amylou (Apr 3, 2014)

My 1 year old Cleo is pure deep orange. So beautiful.
And contrary to popular belief that pure orange females are baron, well I can confirm its not true as Cleo is about to deliver her first litter.


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## sweetcuddles (Jun 30, 2013)

Male calicos are very rare, but orange males and females are common. My mom had a female orange cat that had a litter of 5 kittens. One was a male orange with white paws, so they are not uncommon, neither are orange females. Just the male calicos, if you ever get a male calico, you have money in your pocket because they are worth a lot of money because they are so rare. I have not seen a male calico yet, I hope that I do. Oh also torties don't have white, but calicos do, so they are not the same thing.


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## marie73 (Jul 12, 2006)

Male calicos aren't worth any more money than females, it's a color, not a breed.


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## MowMow (Nov 6, 2010)

marie73 said:


> Male calicos aren't worth any more money than females, it's a color, not a breed.


Vry much this. A PUREBRED male calico might be worth something but to sell the average moggie male calico to 'put money in your pocket' would be irresponsible and encouraging back yard/hobby breeding. Not a good thing.


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## zuma (Nov 5, 2009)

When is even a purebred cat 'money in the pocket'? I would assume past kitten stage and fixed, they're not worth a whole lot of anything money wise. Unless it's like a 20 grand Savannah or something, I can't imagine a scenario where it'd be money in the pocket. 


Sent from Petguide.com App


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## marie73 (Jul 12, 2006)

I told someone that Cleo was part panther and I found $5 in my pocket. 

I'm going to tell someone that Cali is a male and see what happens!!

Maybe I'll get her some neuticals and see what she fetches on eBay!


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## Carmel (Nov 23, 2010)

A male calico shouldn't be worth any more than a female calico... they're sterile, it's not something that can be passed along genetically (one XXY parent, even if it could breed, would not increase odds of having another XXY male, moreover an XXY male cat could also be just orange or just black)... anyone that sells a male calico for more than whatever an average cat sells for is trying to profit off of nothing worthwhile at all.


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## Venusworld21 (Oct 23, 2012)

I was up at the spay/neuter place one day and there was a long line of people picking up their now-altered cats. The lady in front of me had brought hers in a trap (so feral) and the clinic staff was telling her that he was very special and rare, because he was actually a male calico cat. 

I giggled to myself and refrained from pointing out that the neuter surgery she'd just paid for was therefore completely pointless (XXY chromosomes). 


I've always wanted to tell that story to someone but no one in my "regular" life would get it.  CF rocks!


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## Carmel (Nov 23, 2010)

They're sterile, but I'm not sure if that would stop the cat from getting male... urges. Like spraying! Yikes. I wouldn't risk it!!


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## MowMow (Nov 6, 2010)

If he was a feral and a TNR situation (not a housepet) then I guess you're very right. He's not going to populate so no big deal....


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## librarychick (May 25, 2008)

sweetcuddles said:


> Oh also torties don't have white, but calicos do, so they are not the same thing.


The torti/torbi/calico genes are exactly the same. Torties CAN have white (we have a few members who have torties/torbies with bits of white). The difference is purely in how the pattern presents.

Calico: large smooth blotches of solid colors - orange, black, white. Calico means something like 'patchwork', so it's larger blotches of color.

Torties: jagged stripes/patches of colors mixed together. Typically more black/orange (or gray/dilute orange) than white, but they definitely can have white on them.

Torbie: This one is a varient of calico, where the spots that would have been black are tabby.

Side-note, I have yet to meet a calico cat that had solid orange markings. The orange color always seems to come with tabby spots. I think it's neat. 

Ages ago CF had a member with a cat that had such big and bold tabby spots he was solidly the 'patch' color...ie no 'background color. He was a beautiful kitty...Muffin is the opposite, on his main body he has so few spots he almost looks like a dilute orange cat. He's just all background color.

To sum up...yeah, they are the same thing. The difference is in how the pattern settles. No genetic difference...or such a small one that it's negligible.


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## doodlebug (May 13, 2006)

My Callie was a tortie with white.


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