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!