Blue, Blue, Blue...

And more blue! L and L's family sent me some new pictures today, and this is Lottie... no doubt about that in this pic is there? She's a blue! A blue solid Tonkinese. No question. Funny the effect of different lighting isn't it?

(I'm ridiculously pleased...)

Here's Lola, blue mink Tonkinese. You can see her points are the same colour as her sister's, yet her body colour is lighter and warmer.

Aren't they beautiful pictures? Lottie and Lola, now that they are neutered, (reminder, if you haven't, now is the time!)  have started being allowed out for supervised garden time, and by the looks of it are loving it!

And just for comparison, here's Theo, my blue point Birman. Now try to imagine his colouration in a Tonkinese body, and minus the white paws, and this would be a blue point Tonkinese.

There are three different colourpoint patterns in the Tonk breed, solid, mink and (confusingly) pointed. Indigo can't have pointed kittens, for which I am eternally grateful because can you imagine the confusion I'd get into trying to sort out THREE different point possibilities rather than just the two? Colours are bad enough!

Blue or lilac?

Now you know me... I am the first to admit that colouring kittens? Not something I would list as an achievement. I do seem to have a particular issue with lilacs- I think they are blues. Apparently I can't recognise a lilac if it jumped up and purred at me.

But I think I could be forgiven for the confusion here.

I mean, that's a blue kitten, right? That's absolutely a blue kitten. (if anything its sister Lola who is looking a bit lilac-y there, and that's a whole nother post!)

Haha...

That is not a blue kitten. It is a lilac kitten, or rather, a lilac cat, because at the grand old age of 6 months, I suppose they would be terribly offended to be thought of as babies (they will always be babies to me!) Lottie, here, looks just like Mama Indigo.

And again, I would say that was a lilac cat too. As an aside, not sure how old they are here, but I'm assuming they've both stayed smallish cats- they were both small as kittens weren't they? Well, the whole litter was smallish but Lottie and Lola were the smallest of the lot! Maybe not though- Bailey, who was average sized (but the biggest in the Von Trapp litter) is getting to be quite a big cat, I think Sulley might be as well. But my diddiest kitten from the REM litter, Lisl (Hope) stayed small, so I assume L and L will do so too.

I don't half go on... back to colour now...

But here? Here she looks more blue.... but not as blue as I would have expected given her earlier pictures. But still blue!

As I said yesterday, and as you can see in the picture above as well, they have a sufficiently different eye colour now to let us assume Lola is indeed mink and Lottie is a solid (so I am improving!!!) but oooooh I am undecided about Lottie's colour now. Grr!

Any opinions? Lottie and Lola's family don't mind a bit (remember Lottie has already distinguished herself by being undecided as to whether she was male or female for many weeks, she was thought to bea girl, then a boy and she was going to be called Charlie as in Charlie and Lola!) but it is a source of never ending frustration to me to not have this whole colour thing a little more secure in my mind than I currently do.

*grin*

But they are beautiful, and this post has given me an excellent excuse to post more lovely Lottie and Lola pictures. Which is always a good thing! You must be very proud of them K and family- I know I am.

Queen Of The Castle

Lottie and Lola's family have bought the girls a fantastic full height cat climber, which to me looks a bit castle like... very appropriate for two princesses! They love it. Here's Lola at the top. I understand she's also *ahem* rediscovered curtain climbing. Lola!!!! What a monkey!

Looking at Lola, I can't see for the life of me why I ever thought Alfie or Jonah (last year) were blue minks... they looked quite different to Lola. Although having said that, will I have to eat my words this time next year with regards to Lola? I'm much, much more confident about the accuracy of my (eventual!) colourings this year, but even so, we aaaaaaaalllll know what a mess I made of it last year!!! *hangs head in shame*

At least with Tonks this kind of uncertainty goes with the territory... it's almost part of the fun. I guess. LOL.

Right Then. Colours. Again.

I was going to tell you about Freddie's new home today but that will have to wait as I am having a bit of a colour crisis.

Basically, I am wondering now if my two chocolates are not in fact blues, (and whether therefore Kurt is perhaps a chocolate) I am doing some snooping online... I shall bore you all with my findings over the next couple of days, no doubt!

Let me show you what I mean. Here's Freddie and Louis...

awww!

Freddie's always had a different colour coat to Louis, browner somehow. You can sort of see it here:

But see this foot? And that tail? Surely that's a blue foot and tail, right? That's Freddie's...

And here they are, front on. Fred on the left, Louis on the right. Friedrich IS a little bit browner, but come on, those kittens are the same colour... aren't they? But I swear last week Marta and Freddie were a totally different colour to Louis...

So. Assuming they are blues, then I have to decide whether they are minks or solids. Well, they are both obviously darker with less contrast between the points than Miss Gretl (who has a blue tail, so no chance of her being a sneaky lilac lol) but remember this little guy?

Yup, our Wendell, from the last litter. He ws a blue solid, here he is at approximately the same age as this litter are now, and he's definitely blue solid. Neither Freddie or Louis, or Marta for that matter, are this dark in the body, and they should be if they are solids.

So it's all very difficult!

For my new families, I would like to say this: colouring Tonkinese IS notoriously difficult- even the experienced breeders get it wrong sometimes. Often kittens don't 'settle' into their final colour until they are quite mature, browns turn out to be blues and so on. Yet we have to send off for their pedigree slips at seven-ish weeks old- ie I should do it this weekend, really. Plenty of room for error, then, and hence me having a major wibble now!

I do promise this though: If your tonk does end up looking very different to the colour it was supposed to be, send me some pictures and I will discuss it with other breeders to get their opinion. If they agree that the cat is indeed a different colour to the one registered, and if it bothers you that the wrong colour is recorded on the pedigree slip, I will apply change that pedigree slip at my own expense. Lots of ifs, there!

More Colour Musings

But firstly, once again, if anyone is here from the advert in Your Cat, welcome to my blog, where I ramble on about my kittens and permanent resident cats and post lots of cute pictures... like this one!

This is Freddie, and yesterday he officially became the first kitten to crawl out of the nest. Very clever!

I've had another nibble, someone who may want a kitten. Hello, P, if you are reading this!

I'm going all out this time to get the colours correct *grin* so now that their nose leathers are starting to colour up- the earliest indicator- I've taken pictures of the kitten's noses to see if they hold true- plenty of time for them to change, but we will see.

I'm only lightly holding the kittens heads in these piccies... of course they all screamed their heads off like I was murdering them hehe. The photos aren't clear (my replacement camera isn't as good as my other one, but what do you do just before Christmas??? Still haven't found it...)

Liesl.

Nose leather really quite dark. She's also developing quite a marked difference between ears and body, so my guess is brown mink.

Friedrich

I'd had Freddie down as a brown solid, but look at his nose. It's dark, but a warmer, pinker dark than Liesl's. He's still pretty dark all over though, so I'm going for chocolate solid.

Kurt

Very dark nose. I think he must be a brown, whether a solid or a mink I have no idea because of his odd colouring- I got a pic of it...

his bottom half looks really pale in comparison to his dark little head. No idea what's going on there! Judging by his head colour I'd say solid, but by his bottom colour mink. Um...?

Louisa

I had Louisa down as a chocolate, but that nose is looking very lilac to me... much paler than her possibly chocolate siblings noses. Her fur has lightened up considerably too and her ears are not really noticeably darker than the rest of her- yet. So possibly a lilac solid. Otherwise a chocolate.

Brigitta

I had thought she was a choc solid before, but that nose is really dark, so now I'm thinking brown solid

Marta

Looks like a chocolate nose to me. Chocolate solid?

Gretl

That little face cracks me up!

In the photo her nose looks a bit pinky but looking at Gretl and Louisa side by side, Louisa's is much warmer. I'm sticking with my original thought here, blue mink.

Anyway them's my thoughts at the current time! No doubt they will change again though, but I think having a visual record will help me in future years when it comes to determining a kitten's colour. Whatever they are, they are all yummy! 

Colourful!

Ok, so I thought I'd do the same thing I did a few days ago re sexing the kittens- that is, take photos of their colour/ pattern development for future reference. As we all know I wasn't too hot on the whole colour question last time (although to be fair it is difficult!) so I thought an aide-memoir on here would be a good thing.

I think I can rule out having any lilac or chocolate minks. I know that they are born nearly white, and none of my kittens are that pale. A sfor what they actually are, shall we just note here and now that really, I have no idea, I'm just guessing at this stage!!!
Kitten 1

One of the 'inbetween' kittens. My guess, chocolate solid or brown mink.

Kitten 2

The teenager calls this 'The Wendell kitten' and insists he's just like him but I don't think he is really, he's too dark for a blue. I'd guess brown. He's darker than his father, coat wise, too, so I can't see how he could be anything other than a brown solid

Kitten 3

An inbetween kitten. The photo of him didn't come out, but he is most alike in colour to kitten 5. A lovely warm colour. Well his head is, his bottom is much paler! (must get a photo of him, he's odd!)

Kitten 4

Another inbetween kitten. Slightly cooler in tone.

Kitten 5

The fourth inbetween kitten. This one is a lovely rich warm colour in the light, I'm guessing this is a chocolate solid.

Kitten 6

This is the other dark kitten, nearly as dark as kitten 2. My guess, a brown solid.

Kitten 7



The lightest kitten. I don't think its a lilac solid- the tips of the fur are dark in certain lights. Given that I don't think any of the kittens were light enough to be chocolate minks, I'm going with blue mink for this baby. But I don't really know!

So there's my litter... quite, quite different to the last one, I'm sure you will agree!

Genetics: Feelin' Blue

I thought I'd better make more of an effort to write these posts. You never know, someone might be interested one day!

Ok, so we've looked at how there is one colour gene for cats. We've looked at how this gene can express itself in different ways, brown, chocolate and cinnamon (not in the Tonkinese) And we know that the orange gene can mask this colour gene and make a cat orange.

Added to this, there's a gene called 'dilute'. It does exactly what it says on the tin- makes the colour of the coat less intense. Thus black ('brown') is diluted to a grey colour cat fanciers call 'blue', chocolate is diluted to a paler browny- pinky- grey called 'lilac' and cinnamon is diluted to 'fawn'- a light beige shade.

Which starts to explain some of my cats, doesn't it? Ava and Theo are blue cats- they have the brown allele plus dilute. Indigo is a lilac, she has the chocolate allele plus the dilute. All three have other 'bits' going on as well... tabby and colourpoint, but we haven't got to them yet.

Cats can have zero, one or two copies of the dilute gene. Dilute is recessive, in order to express itself there needs to be two copies present. A cat with full colour/ dilute will be full colour, but as ever, will still be able to pass on the dilute gene genetically.

What happens when the cat's colour is masked by the orange 'red' gene? The dilute gene still has an effect, lightening the cat from orange to a buff colour called 'cream'

Cream eh? Don't know about feeling blue, all these cat colour names are making me feel hungry...

Registration

FINALLY got round to sending off the registration form today, after agonising over the colours this past week. I've been looking at Kenneth and wondering if he's caramel too, but decided he looked far more like Monty than Kensey. Ditto AnnElise, but she's down as a blue, too. Of course, colours can be changed, everyone who breeds Tonks, especially mixed caramel/ non caramel litters will be well aware that kittens can take a long time to determine, and many a breeder has taken their apparently blue or lilac kitten to a show only to meet with fierce discussion from judges and other breeders as to whether it really is a Caramel! But I've done my best, anyway!

Only just in time, too. Processing can take up to 4 weeks, and I have them here with me still for.... oooh, about four and a half! Nothing like leaving it to the last minute eh, but like I say I was agonising over the colour... I really wanted to get it 'right'. I had to do the form twice, as I made an error on the first and there's no room for correction on the form, plus it's confusing and that's how mistakes are made. I suppose i'm lucky I only had to do it twice!

Anyway, off went the form, the mating certificate from stud Harry's breeders (proving I mated Indigo with another registered Tonkinese and not a random tomcat from up the road!) and the fee, and I shall look forward to getting six 'pink slips' through in the mail... My first Tonkinese, all registered and official. I feel very proud.

On a less pleasant note, this is my poor Indigo's head. The lesions extend into her ears, and over both outer ears, and as you can see are red, raw and sore. Those of you who have seen her recently will appreciate just how quickly this has flared up. She's had a collar on for 24 hours now, and I THINK they haven't worsened any in that time, (because she can't scratch them, probably) and I'm hoping the collar plus the soothing gel will break the itch-scratch-bleed- scab- itch cycle and let them start to heal. Plus we have the vet on Tuesday. I'm hoping now she's only nursing sporadically there will be more options for her. And I'm busily researching preservative and dye free food for the big switcheroo once the kittens have moved on.

 Kenneth's new family were due to visit him tomorrow, but they very kindly contacted me after yesterday's blog entry to ask if I'd rather they postpone. Considering I expect they are dying to see Kenneth again, it was very kind and I did appreciate it- thank you very much S and D!

I had someone coming over tomorrow to look at AnnElise and Kensey, but I've let them know what's going on as well... they may well wish to cancel too. We'll see how it goes. Of course the worry (apart from my concern for Indigo which is, of course, the most important thing!) is that this might dissuade people from taking a kitten from me- understandably, of course, but fairly hard lines for me as the kittens are fine!

There are two other people currently interested as well, (one in the pair, one in AnnElise) and I've let them know about Indigo's head, and offered to help find them another Tonk litter if they wanted as well... I figured that was the right thing to do, but really, of course, I'd like to stomp my feet like a little child and shout IT'S NOT FAIR! After two weeks of not a lot, suddenly I get a rush of genuine interest in the kittens... and this happens!!!!!

Ah well, that's breeding for you, things go wrong and you just have to deal with them. *grin* I feel a bit better after my virtual stomp, anyway!

Caramel

One of the reasons I wanted to mate Indigo to Harry (Fecheldee) was that Harry carries the dilute modifier, also known as the caramelising gene. Once the kittens are off my hands I'll start writing about genetics again, and we'll cover this. Basically though the dilute modifier works on dilute colours only (blue, lilac, fawn, which isn't recognised in the Tonkinese, and cream) warming ad brightening the base colours to caramel or apricot.

Some years ago, I read a piece by a Tonk breeder, making the case NOT to introduce Caramel into the Tonkinese breed. Caramel is often difficult to distinguish from other colours, which 'muddies' the genetic waters somewhat... for example, lilac based caramel and blue based caramel are only very very subtly different- indeed, they share the same registration code, but have different implications for what colour kittens they can themselves produce. How does one distinguish between the two? However, things have moved on, and I then saw that the same breeder now breeds caramels with no issue. Good for her, I think, both for questioning the necessity for certain colours but then also to be able to change her mind as the breed progressed. Similar arguments have been made for not introducing cinnamon and fawn into the gene pool, and cinnamon and fawn are currently NOT accepted as Tonk colours. And really what a nightmare that would be, sorting out fawn based caramel, lilac based caramel and blue based caramel... all looking pretty much the same. Blimey!

Now often, the difference is so subtle that cats are registered as blues, lilacs and so on, and the fact they are caramel is only picked up at cat shows when they are much older. That might be the case in multi- coloured litters- if you have one blue in the litter then I guess you just assume it's blue!- but I am lucky enough to have a whole litter of blues, plus a blue point birman for colour comparison. So that gives me an ideal opportunity to study the effect of caramel from an early stage. Of course, the idea was to have a lot of lilacs and caramels to compare, but blues do the job just as well!

So in the past few days I've been studying my kittens whenever they've been still enough to do so, and trying to see if I can differentiate the kittens that MIGHT be caramel. And... I think I can! Very exciting.

Do you see in this picture, the kitten in the middle is a different colour to the ones either side? That's the three boys, and the one in the middle is Kensey. Kensey seems- to my inexperienced eye- rather lighter and 'warmer' than his two brothers. In fact, several visitors have noticed this, and I always know when I'm talking to Kensey, and can easily pick Kensey out from a pile of sleeping kittens (without checking the colour in his armpit!) whereas I quite often muddle up Kenneth and Monty.

Now, I don't think this is natural variation. Kenneth and Monty are not exactly the same colour- one is slightly darker (but I forget which... I think it's Kenneth) but both are still a cool blue, you can tell that they are, basically, the same colour. (At the moment!) Whereas with Kensey, it's not that he's just a bit lighter

Look at this one too. This is Monty and Kensey- Kensey in front. Again, Kensey's nose leather colour seems more mushroomy than steely, and compared to Monty's you can see the difference there. And the colour on the face too, Kensey's has a more browny-pinky quality.

And here... the ears. The 'seam' of the ears- the very tip- are a good indication of the kittens' final point colour. This is Kenneth and Kensey. Kensey's ear is the lower one, and again, there's a clear difference between Kensey's warmer shade and Kenneth's cooler one.

So anyway... as far as I can tell at this early stage, both Kenneth and Monty are blues, but Kensey is a caramel. And I think I might have a blue and a caramel girl too, although it's harder to tell with them and I haven't been able to get any decent pictures to compare. Wendell, I'm pretty sure, is a blue.

Of course I might be totally wrong. We'll see!

The Blues

Originally posted on my private blog- posted to http://indikon-tonkinese.blogspot.com/ on 06/01/11

My litter has been puzzling me no end, especially young Wendell. I've noted before that he doesn't really look like a lilac, he's too dark, in fact he looks distinctly blue. Then I thought he was lightening off and would look more lilac-y in turn. Then I thought perhaps this was caramel, then? He looks very little like his Mama anyway, who is a solid lilac, and I couldn't work out why that was. The other kittens, too, they look rather darker than I would have expected for a lilac, especially Monty and Kenneth. But they couldn't possibly be lilac could they, because of their parentage it wouldn't be possible, genetically.

But yesterday the penny dropped! Dad cat is apricot, which means he has the orange making gene masking his true colour. I've only considered this orange colour when thinking about what he could pass on to his children, but of course this isn't the case... he will also be passing on his masked colour too. Bingo! I don't know why, but this had completely passed me by... I'd only ever considered the red colouring.

So I don't have a litter of lilacs after all... I have a litter of blues! And possibly blue- based caramels. There could be lilacs and lilac caramels in the mix as well, but they all look more or less the same to me so I think they are the same colour. We'll see, I'm sure Dad cat has lilac offspring, so lilac ought to be possible but I don't think we have any.

That's OK though. I like blues... I have two of my own! And suddenly the colour of my litter makes sense.

I do feel a wally though! Ah well, I'd been rather too smug about having sexed the kittens correctly (at the vet the other day it was confirmed that we do indeed have four boys and two girls) so it's no more than I deserve really, pride goeth before a fall and all that! I'm also feeling a little daunted, I must admit, at the prospect of deciding between more possible colourways... I suspect I would have been wiser to have chosen a different stud and left both red and caramel until I'd got a little more experience! But no matter, I'll get there in the end, I'm sure :)

I Love...

Originally posted on my private blog- posted to http://indikon-tonkinese.blogspot.com/ on 06/01/11

...his glorious floofy coat.

And his sweet, open expression. My blue point Birman boy is just adorable. He's patient, playful and affectionate. What's not to love? (well OK the occasional hairball notwithstanding...)

Introducing... Ava

Originally posted on my private blog- posted to http://indikon-tonkinese.blogspot.com/ on 06/01/11

No, Ava is not a Tonkinese! She's a valued part of the kitty-household though, so I thought you might like to meet her.

Ava came here with her sister Sofia, my first cats. They were from a litter of five, Ava was the second oldest. Mum was a black smoke shorthaired Persian cross, Dad either a chocolate or cinnamon tabby with a 'Foreign' look to him. Ava herself is a blue smoke tabby, which means she's grey and stripey with a fabulous white undercoat. She's a very dark grey, were she a pedigree it would be considered a fault, but I think she's stunning, the dark grey against the creamy white undercoat is particularly striking.

She's inherited uber-soft fur from her Persian- cross mother and whilst she's a shorthaired cat, she has much longer fur than her sister Sofia (who has in turn much longer fur than Indigo... shorthaired cats have a lot of variation!)

I've included this photo because, whilst it's a dreadful picture in terms of quality, it's very 'Ava'. This was taken several years ago when she was a teeny kitten, and yes, as you may have guessed, Ava is a shy girl. She started out shy, trailing around after her far more confident sister, and in terms of the cat pecking order she's very much at the bottom of the pile. She doesn't often come out when we have visitors, unlike the other three, unless she's feeling especially brave.

However, when the house is quiet, she does venture out. She 'announces' her entrance into a room with a mew and a head rub for me, and once it's night time and I'm in bed she's chatty and affectionate, doing happy paws (kneading) on the duvet and curling up on my chest. She loves to be stroked, and she adores being brushed, purring constantly.

She's a shy girl, but it seems she's a happy one too.