Although I wish this handsome young man was one of mine, either a resident or one I'd bred, he isn't. This is Tallica Mojito, Amanda's (reader, commenter) tonk.
Mojo was thought to be a chocolate solid, but Amanda thinks he looks more like a chocolate mink, so has given me permission to post his piccies on here to see... and hopefully as he grows there will be more pictures and we can see what he eventually settles into.
Mojo is currently only 5 months, so plenty of time to settle into his final colouration... remember the shenanigans over the REM litter when they turned about one? And C reports that Jacob has recently lightened, whilst Jonah has darkened into their (presumably) final colour. in fact it can take a Tonk several years to settle into their final colour and even then colour can keep on developing- mature browns, for example, can get very dark indeed.
Mojo's body colour now. I have not had chocolates here, so I couldn't say one way or another. His body is still pretty pale, but chocolates are pale anyway, he has a lovely creamy belly but it isn't almost white, as I've seen in a mink, but that could be the light.
His eyes look pretty aqua though, which would be more typical of a mink.
For comparison, here are Pasha and CoCo (Liesl and Brigitta) at 2(ish) months- Pasha, front, is a brown mink and CoCo a solid, but their eye colour is pretty much the same. By three months though, the eye colour is starting to look pretty different. You can't really see from this pic, but CoCo is a lot darker in the body.
Here's Bailey, a brown solid like CoCo, a month or so later:
You can see his eyes are already starting to look green/ greeny-yellow compared to Pasha's, below... Pasha is a mink and had very nice aqua eyes at 3 months...
Back to Mojo! Those eyes look much more like Pasha's than they do Bailey's don't they? If I had to guess, now, and with all the usual provisos about really not being terribly good at colouring kittens, I'd say he was a chocolate mink. But as always, opinions welcomed! M, your Dylan is a chocolate mink isn't he, is Mojo similar in colouration or is he darker-??
Thanks for posting Mojo among other Tonks. Always interesting to see comparisons!
ReplyDeleteI love Bailey and the way he has darkened. I'm curious to see how Mojo will develop. But he is a growing boy developing some manly aspects now.
Poor little mite doesn't have an inkling about what's going to happen to him tomorrow, but being Nil By Mouth is going to make for a long night for us.. because he does love his food!
I have sent you a photo of Dylan will take some more he is getting all the time.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your blog, and your cats! Just discovered you. I'm a future Tonk breeder based in Majorca: "Mallorca Tonks" on Facebook...feel free to Friend me!
ReplyDeleteHello! How lovely :) how old is your girl currently? Are you new to breeding or just new to Tonks? (lots of people come to Tonks 'sideways' through breeding Siamese for example) I've had two litters, so am still pretty much a rookie myself, but if I can help I'd be pleased to :)
DeleteThanks for your nice reply, Beth. I just have to boys for now. Still waiting for my right queen: a cinnamon female from the US. Are you active on Facebook? You can see my cats, etc. over there :) Joan (Catalan for John)
DeleteI will look you up, we do have a Facebook page :) Ooooh cinnamon, our governing body (GCCF, don't know bout TICA)doesn't recognise cinnamon as an accepted colour so we don't breed it. Very interesting :)
ReplyDeleteI nearly adopted a Cinnamon Oriental a few years ago, but was told she didn't get on with other cats. She was a beautiful colour.
ReplyDeleteWhat a shame, Amanda ;) What cats do you have now?
DeleteTICA does recognize Honey and its dilute Fawn. They're truly special warm colours. Cinnamons have a marvelous golden sheen to them. There's quite a few breeders now trying to have CFA reconsider the demoting of the colour from Championship that took place in the 90's in kind of irregular circumstances. I hope to give them a humble hand from Majorca (Europe is now CFA's Region 9) in the near future, once the right female comes along. In the meantime I'm perfectly happy with my two mink boys: a blue, Bruce, and a chocolate, Robbie :)
ReplyDeleteOur GCCF seems to be ultra cautious when it comes to colours- but part of the resistance comes from the breeders themselves. I know there was considerable objection to introducing caramel/ apricot into the gene pool
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure where I stand on that to be honest. Whether we are too small a community to be introducing new colours, and whether we should be concentrating on breeding good examples of the colours we already have is one to ponder on. Plus there are issues I feel more strongly about to be honest, such as not being able to show solids and pointeds when these are every bit as Tonk as their mink counterparts.
I nearly went into breeding Abys, and they have cinnamon (sorrel) and fawn of course. The breeder who was going to give me a kitten had a lovely sorrel breeding girl, who went on to have a fawn boy who is now a stud. Lovely colours I agree :)
I totally understand your position, Beth. I love Abys too. As a matter of fact the cinnamon gene was probably introduced into the Tonks through a series of outcrossings around WWII.
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