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!