# What color is this?



## SheepGirl (Jul 9, 2012)

This is what I would call a gray tabby, but she has red and brown mixed in with her. She and her littermate are this same color (but the littermate doesn't have as red of ears) and when you stand their fur up, where the tabby stripes are it's red.

Their mom is a red classic tabby and their sire is pretty much this same color. There were five kittens in the litter: 3 like this and then 2 red/cream tabbies. One of the gray ones died when it was 3 days old, though.


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## Jacq (May 17, 2012)

I would call that a brown tabby, but I'm no expert. The ruddier parts of Io look like that (she's torbie), but her stripes are markedly more orange then on the redder parts of your little girl.


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## yingying (Jul 19, 2011)

She looks like a black tortieshell tabby (also called torbie) to me. I think it's also called patched tabby in some countries.


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## catloverami (Jul 5, 2010)

Her color is a little difficult to determine at this stage, but I say she's a brown mackeral patched tabby, or brown mackeral torbie. Mackeral=stripes like the mackeral fish. In the third pic, the striping on her shoulder and front legs look more silverish, so she could turn out to be a silver mackeral patched tabby or torbie. Brown tabbies are sometimes difficult to classify as the brown is a warm brown tone but grayish. A cutie-pie for sure!


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## corinthia (Jan 25, 2009)

here is a photo of my torbie, Apple. 










any excuse to show off my kitties


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## SheepGirl (Jul 9, 2012)

Thanks for the replies, guys! And Apple is pretty cute 

I was reading up on red genetics and it said red females are rare/uncommon since red is a sex-link trait, and a red female must have the red gene on both of her Xs (as opposed to a red male who just needs it on just one X), which means she has to have two red parents.

So this leads me to my next question--the dam of the litter is a red classic tabby. Her sire was Frank (the previous dominant tom cat), a red classic tabby, and her dam is a red mackerel tabby. The sire of this litter is this same gray/torbie pattern and he is the new dominant male around here. His sire (the one who 'took Frank out') is the same gray/torbie pattern, except he had patches of white. I do not know which cat is his dam, but it's likely another red female (Frank was the top cat around here for a good four years and so everybody was a red tabby, with the exception of the occasional red lynx point being born).

So the sire and dam of this litter are a torbie and a red tabby, respectively. They, however, produced three gray females (look just like dad) and a cream male and red female (who looks just like mom). So how is it possible that with only one red parent they produced a red female?


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## yingying (Jul 19, 2011)

Red females are not rare. They sure are fewer than red males, but by no means uncommon. Females can get three basic colors (not counting diluted, silver/golden, etc.), RR (red), BB (black), or RB (tortie). Whereas males can only be either R or B. 



> So the sire and dam of this litter are a torbie and a red tabby, respectively. They, however, produced three gray females (look just like dad) and a cream male and red female (who looks just like mom). So how is it possible that with only one red parent they produced a red female?


Red females don't need two red parents. She can has a red dad and tortie mom. Then half females will be tortie and half red. To be more specific, totie mom = RB, red father = R, so females can be RR or RB (B from mom), and males can be either R or B (both from mom).


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## Sol (Feb 20, 2003)

She's a brown mackerel tortbie. Definitely. Both from the pictures and the info about the parents. A brown/black (something) mother and a red (something) father can only produce tortie females.


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## maewkaew (Jun 27, 2012)

Sol said:


> She's a brown mackerel tortbie. Definitely. Both from the pictures and the info about the parents. A brown/black (something) mother and a red (something) father can only produce tortie females.


 But she said the dam is red classic tabby and the sire is this sort of torbie color! 

If he really is a rare male torbie and what's even more rare, a fertile male torbie, maybe he is a chimera ( result of 2 embryos fusing ) one red & one black. 

When male cats are torbies because they have extra X chromosomes, they are pretty much always sterile. And that may be most of the male torties/ torbies. But there are other ways a male cat could be a tortie or torbie and be usually fertile. 
Mosaicism, Tortie Tomcats and Genetically Impossible Kittens


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## SheepGirl (Jul 9, 2012)

I took some pictures of them yesterday...

This guy is the sire/current dominant male (when I went out to feed my sheep I saw him in the garage so I took that opportunity to snap some pictures):

































Here is the mother and you can kind of see the coloring on the gray/torbie female:









This is the mother and her red daughter









This is the cream male









This is the kitten this thread was originally started for...


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## SheepGirl (Jul 9, 2012)

Sorry! Forgot this pic of the torbie/gray female...


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## catloverami (Jul 5, 2010)

The sire (in the garage) in first and third pics looks like brown mackeral tabby, but in the second pic looks _silver _mackeral tabby. I know lighting can affect colour, but what does his color look to you as being the most natural? To me sire does not look torbie to me, tho he has some warmer brown on his back, I think it's a variation in color.


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## Sol (Feb 20, 2003)

maewkaew said:


> But she said the dam is red classic tabby and the sire is this sort of torbie color!
> 
> If he really is a rare male torbie and what's even more rare, a fertile male torbie, maybe he is a chimera ( result of 2 embryos fusing ) one red & one black.
> 
> ...


My bad, but the result would be the same. A red tabby mom and a brown tabby father only generates tortie or torbie females. Males would be red/red tabby. If the father looks a bit like the kitten in the picture he's most likely a brown tabby with a very warm color (rufism). One of the give aways for a brown tabby with rufism would be that the pattern still is dark brown/black. In a torbie the pattern is red.


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