Basic Principles of Cat Gentics.
  •  To get a genetic red or genetic cream female kitten, the sire must be a genetic red or genetic cream and the dam must also have red or cream in her.
  • A dominant characteristic (dominant colours, shaded, smoke, white, tabby, bi-colour, etc) cannot skip generations.  It cannot go from one generation to the next without showing the characteristic in each generation.  Cats displaying a dominant colour, must have a parent that displays a dominant colour.
  • Two recessive colour parents (cream, blue, etc.) cannot produce a cat of dominant colour (black, red, tortie, etc.)
  • Two colourpointed parents cannot produce a  non-colourpointed offspring.  To get a colourpointed kitten, both parents must be carrying the colourpointed gene (even if they do not appear colourpointed themselves).
  • A tabby cat must have at least one parent that is either a shaded or a tabby.  All red cats will have some tabby markings.
  • A cat with a white undercoat (smoke or shaded) must have a parent that has a white undercoat.
  • Shaded parents can produce smoke offspring, but smoke parents cannot produce shaded offspring
  • A bi-colour cat must have a bi-colour parent.
  • parti-coloured cats (blue-cream, tortie, calico) are almost always female, but males can and do occur occasionally.
  • A white cat must have a white parent.
  • A mackerel tabby kitten must have a mackerel tabby parent.

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