Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello all,
I have a line of barncats, some of them now also at home, who seem to produce Siamese colored kittens every now and then. The first cat who showed up in the barn was a tiger, and she produced a seal point, and two lilac points, with a tiger and white male, then, a litter after, a siamese colored tabby and another lilac point, again with the same male. Her daughter, tigered with a short tail, produced two more seal points, one of them I have at home now. Another daughter had two seal points, and in her last litter were two females, one tabby with white the other spotted tiger with white, no Siamese. But the tabby/white had two Siameses in her current litter, one tabby, the other one with big white blotches in a Siamese colored coat. The tabby also has white paws and a white nose. Now at home I have two other children of that last mentioned daughter, who produced in the first litter only tiger, tiger white and black and white, but then, son/mother and sister/ brother pairing, again, two Siamese, one tabby with socks, white nose and white collar, the other a clear sealpoint..
..Does anybody have an explanation for this? It seems to be a strong gene, the Siamese Gene, I take it. Physically the Siamese colored ones are all different, some more slim, long legs, long tail, the others more "chubby", round face. But all have blue eyes, some of them also crossed. And personality is clearly Siamese.
Did any of you have that happen, too, or is it an Italian trait? (I live in Italy).
In a way it seems to be a shame to get them all fixed (I'm joking, of course).
To me it looks like breeding back to Siamese could be possible.
I have to add that here people are rarely spaying/neutering cats. Stray cats are being fed, nobody bothers them, they're being taken care off when they're sick. Especially neutering the male is a thing the average Italian won't do, in any animal, except horses ,maybe, since they're strong

Hi There,

Normally, I would be upset about someone allowing cats to breed like this but I guess things would be different living in a country where cats are not routinely spayed and neutered. Hopefully you do not have the cat and dog overpopulation problem that we have here in the US. It does sound like the strays over there are cared for, and that is great.

Cat genetics is a mystery to me, although I have heard of both tabby and black cats having Siamese mix kittens. Some of these babies even look purebred. At one time I adopted a brown tabby mom who had given birth to 2 Siamese kittens in her last litter. The father was believed to be a big black Tom who was hanging around at the time.

If it is at all possible to have at least some of your barn cats spayed and neutered, I highly recommend it. You may find some day that there are more cats than you can afford to care for, and they would be healthier besides. Unspayed females can develop very serious, even fatal, uterine infections and are at high risk for mammary cancer.

Thanks for posting and please feel free to post again anytime!

Regards,
PHKitkat

This is a picture of my Mocha who was born to Wicca, a black cat Mom and an unknown Dad. All her litter mates were striped or black.

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Tessa Foudini, Charlee, Spottie, ShyRaven, Buddy, Tuxie, Widdle Attila Sipowitz, Lizzie, Minnie, ET, Mylo,Salem, Wicca, Marmalade, Amelia, Rocket and Turbo (we iz NOT fosters) and the 5 porch kits, Mocha, Tigger, Cali, Torti and Smudge also Riley da goggie and Buddha da baby hamster too
Onyx,Tabitha and Samantha..always in our hearts & together again//Fly free Penny 12/12/07
A house without cats is like a garden without flowers