Mojo

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-??

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!

Gloomy

Giving me cattitude

Sorry Inds... wasn't me who turned the sun off again!

Bailey has a little brother! M's new little chocolate mink boy Dylan was finally old enough to come home. Apparently he- Bailey- hasn't been too thrilled about it and has been hissing up a storm but that's lessening now and there's even been some positive interaction going on now. I have no doubt they will be best friends before too long.

I am jealous of these chocolate mink kittens... oh for a bigger house! I would love a chocolate cat. One day!

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.

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! 

The Eyes (Don't) Have It

So, I've been in a bit of a quandary about Alfie and Jonah's colouring. Both were registered as blue minks, and they LOOKED like blue minks as kittens, but as they have gotten older, they have matured into very different colouration. They both have goldy eyes.... so are they even minks at all? So I asked the advice of two very experienced breeders I know.

Alfie now. Both the breeders I have chatted to (and I didn't ask them if I could say who they were, so I won't, but you know who you are and many many thanks!) agree that he is a caramel, both feel he is indeed a mink, despite the eyes. As for Jonah, whilst both agree that he looks mink, one thought he looked more lilac and one thought caramel. *grin* And both reassured me that they get it wrong regularly- it's a hazard of Tonk-dom, it seems.

 Jonah, man of mystery!

One lady told me that you do get Tonks seen occasionally on the show bench that don't have perfect eye colour. It's not uncommon, it seems. And the other said that it can take up to three years for a Tonk to fully settle into his eventual eye and coat colour- for all their quickness to mature in other areas, coats and eyes take their time. So we may yet see eyes lightening or coats darkening and change our minds about colours all over again! Jonah may eventually start to look more obviously one or the other

I will say this- I thought lilac minks were born white/ pale cream, and all of my babies were a pale beigey colour. So at the moment I am tending towards the caramel for Jonah. It will be interesting to see if I have any lilac minks in my next litter (a possibility, but I'm not telling you any more at this stage!) so I can compare photos as they grow. It will be interesting to see.