I was wondering what colour kittens could be expected from a calico mum and black/white dad?

My friend's cat is pregnant and I've said I'll have one of the kittens (or maybe two). This was an unintentional mating, she was caught by her brother . He's the only possible father as neither of them have been outside yet.

I'm sure whatever colour the kittens are they'll be adorable but I'm just curious

Cheers everyone!

Cat coat genetics are quite complex, I know breeders have a book telling them what to expect from certain pairings - I think you might need to know the colour of the grandparents as well as the parents. I am sure someonelse on here will know a lot about it though.

I would not personally be quick to take a kitten from this litter as kittens from a brother-sister mating have an increased risk of hereditary disease. In the wild the male kittens get chased away by the queen when they're old enough to mate, to try to prevent inbreeding. So it's important owners have their cats neutered at five months even if they are kept indoors.

I totaly agree with the interbreeding. It could cause all sorts of problems with the litter. I wouldnt either take a cat from this litter.

Cant really help but thought I would say that I have a calico she mated with a ginger tom cat her litter was two ginger and whites, one all black and one calico exactly like her, I also wouldnt worry too much about the whole inbreeding thing as they may have increase of health problems but then again they maybe not risk you take with most pets you have from people

What shame that the brother and sister were able to mate

But having done so, something has to be done with the kittens, so well done for taking one (or maybe two) on, as long as you are aware that there may be extra health issues and you ensure the kitten(s) are neutered before they get a chance to breed again

We took in a kitten from a neighbour who had rescued a mother and kittens from a family that were allowing her breed litter after litter, all interbreeding and our kitten came with a basket of oranges to say thank you for taking her

She was the only kitten of the litter who lived beyond a year, but we were lucky, she was quite healthy, if a bit timid.

I'm afraid I can't help with the colour though

I agree Nanny Ogg, with non-pedigree cats you often do not know their antecedents, or what ailments they may have. But here you have a known risk. Which is why I wouldn't be first in line. NB, if you do take two of the kittens make sure they are neutered early and have no chance of interbreeding

As far as I remember from my rudimentary cat genetics, the two dominant coat colours in cats are black, and tabby; red is a recessive gene (red is responsible for gingers and torties/calicos).

So unless the black and white cat has red as a recessive, his genes are likely to be more dominant and you'd expect more b/w in the kittens. (No doubt someone will correct me if that is not right.) But without knowing the colours of the four grandparents I don't think it can be predicted. One breeder showed me pages of notes she had to use to work out what she would get from what combination - and obviously she also knew the parentage and grandparentage of her cats.

I've had three red (ginger or tortie) pedigree kittens, the coat colour for two of them worked like this:

Red mother and blue father with red as a recessive - three ginger boys, three tortie girls.

The other one was:

Tortie mother, ginger father - three tortie girls, one ginger boy.

I wouldn't take one either. The slightest genetic problem and it wil be magnified massively.

That said... the neighbour's calico queen mated with a brown tabby and white tom and the kittens were literally every colour imaginable... there were 2 grey tabbies, a ginger tabby, 2 brown tabbies, and a tortoisehell if I remember right.

thanks for the replies, everyone. it is unfortunate what's happened. My friend is generally very responsible, she has 3 other male cats, all of whom had the snip at an early age and she fully intended getting these two done in plenty of time. I dunno if she thought these two were slightly younger than they actually are, and she said that she hadn't noticed any 'presenting' on the part of the girl.

However, her nipples are swollen so it def looks like she is pregnant. I will give it more careful consideration though, given the comments

Just booked my 3 cats in to be speyed and neutered next thursday. They are brothers and a sister. There upto the weight well the boys are but the female might not be. She just finished her first season very quickly. She will be speyed what ever as the only 2 males i have are her brothers. I just wouldnt take the risk with interbreeding at all. Has your friends cat seen a vet yet. If its defentley her brothers they might be able to help.

Brother / sister - ugh! Let's hope their parents were completely unrelated. And let's hope the boy is already neutered and the girl will be once the kittens are 6-8 weeks old.

Let's also hope the girl is being well looked after and is on kitten food - it's for pregnant and nurseing females as well as kittens - and she has taken steps to ensure no fleas and no worms.

As to colours:

I take it by calico you mean patches of black, ginger and white - the black areas are clear and plain black, not dark tabby.

That means first thinking about it as two black & white cats. Now two black cats will normally produce black kittens - greys are a possibility. The white bits are the white spotting gene, each parent has at least one copy. If one parent has two copies then all the kittens will be black and varying amounts of white. If both parents only have one copy then out of 4 kittens you can expect one black, the rest B&W. Probably that is what you are looking at, except mum is tortie - she has one copy of the ginger gene.

Ginger is sex-linked - it's on the X chromosone. Mum has two of those, so she has one copy of ginger.

Given data isn't ginger, her boys have a 50/50 chance of being ginger and the girls 50/50 of being tortie. The others will be black.

So, most likely, boys will be ginger & white or black and white, girls will be tortie & white or black and white. Ginger or black boys and tortie or black girls are possible as well.

If either parent has lots and lot of white it might have two copies of the white spotting gene in which case you are looking at all kittens having some white, some maybe having a lot of white.

Hello, just an update on this. After reading all the replies, I had a word with my friend and she agreed in the circumstances it would be a good idea to consult the vet.

Lola wasn't too far on in the pregnancy so they were able to spay her. Her brother has now been 'done' as well so no more accidents! Knowing my friend she will probably rescue more unwanted kittens at some point that I can have

Thanks for all the advice.

(totally off topic, but did we ever find out what happened with the poster whose cat food was misteriously disappearing during the night???)

Thats great i think she did the right thing for lola. And great for getting both of them neutered/speyed.

The only thing I could say with certainty is that any calico kittens would be female.

My two are brother and sister (mother is a sealpoint Siamese), father bog standard multicoloured moggy. Sister is a mackeral tabby, brother is jet black all over. So who knows?!

It is very cheering to hear that your friend did the responsible thing and had the cats neutered. Thank you for coming back to let us know.

Seal-point Siamese are black cats! The colour-point pattern is a form of partial albinoism hence the pale bodies and blue eyes. It's recessive e.g. a kitten has to inherit it from both parents for it to be expressed, so with a moggie the Siamese will breed like a black cat.

Also all cats gave genes for some kind of tabby pattern, but plain black / grey etc. ones have two recessive non-agouti genes so the tabby pattern doesn't get expressed.

So, presumably the dad was a tabby cat and carries non-agouti, hence with a black cat (the Siamese) produces 50% tabbies, 50% self cats.

No problem. To be fair to her, she usually is very responsible. She has five other cats (all boys) who all had their plums whipped off as soon as it was feasible . I was very surprised she'd allowed it to happen but she has had a lot going on with a family member seriously ill, so maybe that contributed.

Ooh thanks.

Lots more here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_coat_genetics

Very interesting. The black one is solid in colour (doesn't go browny red in the sun but blue-black). But he does have tabby markings on his head. I say markings, they are a pattern in his coat but solid black in colour so I guess that would support your post that the father was a tabby. Given the number of Siamese cats at the place where I got them I'm thinking this most likely had Siamese genes too.

My friend had a cat which had an Abyssinian mother and a tabby father. He looked exactly like his father, in build and colouring - he was just a big tabby cat! I guess this is accounted for by catsfive's post.

You often see ghost tabby markings on non-agouti (self) cats, as all cats have tabby genes - it's just that the non-agouti gene stops it showing, mostly. (ginger cats are an exception - non-agouti doesn't work on ginger fur)

Having a colourpoint gene (Siamese cats have the colourpoint pattern) won't make any odds to how he looks unless he has two of them. But if he was half-Siamese it would probably show in his shape and voice as well.

He has the long body of a Siamese, the wedge shaped head, pointy ears and the croaky miaow. He also chats all day! He's very Siamese in character and looks. And his coat is beautiful. Am pleased as when they were both kittens he was a little ball of bum-fluff and I was worried that his sister would get all the admiration but he now has the thickest, glossiest blue-black coat. I'm biased of course but they're both gorgeous and very Siamese in character (the girl's identical to a Siamese tabby I previously had).

Current Siamese brother & sister http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/a...8072008142.jpg

Old 1/2 Siamese Tabby http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/a...05-05_2037.jpg

Sorry for hijacking thread OP, just interesting topic that's answering question I always had.

I don't think we did, I've been eagerly waiting for a response ever since!