Wicca Cats

Although from the same cattery Amber has different breeding. She has Bundas and Select exotics. Both Demdar queens have Maine Coon grandmothers. Amber is a Brown/Black spotted Torbie, if you look closely you can see a small streak of ginger on top of her head. Amber can produce ginger spotted boys, torbie girls like herself and standard B/B spot girls. Although a non standard colour Kristin and I felt that her good type, breeding and size out weighed her colour. She is an asset to my breeding programme and I am very excited to have her join me. She also will be a founder breeder for F4sbt's. . Although less outgoing than Ruby, she has a gentle temperament that she will hopefully pass on to her kittens. Again my thanks go to Kristin for these lovely cats.

I have decided that Amber will be an asset in my breeding programme after advice from her breeder, Kristin Filseth, who is not only a vet but also a much admired established breeder of Savannahs in America.  For those who are unaware of how the red gene works I will offer you an explanation after which I am sure you will see my reasoning for using this girl.  The orange colouring is rather unique amongst cat colours as it is on the X chromosome.  That makes its inheritance a bit different from other genes.    In order to be torbie, Amber has one regular coloured (full or black colour) X chromosome and one X chromosome with a gene coding for orange/red colour.  These two chromosomes constitute the required 2Xs to make her female (usually written XX).   Having one coding for each colour creates Amber's coat pattern of mixed regular colouring and orange colouring.  An orange male has one X chromosome (with orange on it), and no other X chromosome, they have a Y in order to be male.  Therefore male cats cannot be torbie unless they are a mutant type cat with extra chromosomes, but let's not go into that.

When Amber creates a kitten by making an egg she will donate just one of her two X chromosomes to the kitten. The other will come from the sire.  What colour the kitten comes out depends on which of her two X chromosomes she donates to the kitten.  If she donates her regular coloured X then the offspring will be regular coloured and will not carry the orange gene.  This applies to either boy or girl kittens.  If she donates the X chromosome for orange, then the kitten will come out orange if it is a boy;  if it is a girl, because it inherits an X with regular colouring from the sire, it would have regular and orange colouring, i.e. a torbie.  The decision about which X she donates to each kitten is random - there are two choices, either regular or torbie gene.  So half the time she gives one X and half the time the other.  This means that half the time she will have regular kittens and half will have the X with the orange gene (if boys they will be orange and if girls torbie).  In summary when mated to a regular coloured male  1/4 of her kittens would be regular coloured boys, a 1/4 of her kittens will be regular coloured girls, a 1/4 of her kittens will be orange boys and a 1/4 of her kittens torbie girls.  Of course that is on average over her breeding life so you may get regular kittens in one litter and more torbie or orange in the next.

Having said all that ORANGE IS NOT THERE IF YOU DO NOT SEE IT.   It may not be so obvious in a very young female kitten, a few orange hairs or a pink paw pad, but as the kitten grows the colour will become more evident.  Just a small amount of orange and you know she is a torbie and will carry the orange gene.  Any regular coloured kittens will not carry the orange gene and will not produce orange or torbie kittens.

In view of the above and as I have said with Kristin as my mentor, and I cannot thank her enough for all her help and advice, I feel that Amber could produce some girls that will help with Savannah breeding programmes in this Country.  As orange is not a hidden gene I can pick which girls are suitable for breeding.  Any boys would, of course, be infertile as they would be F3s so will always go as pets as will any torbie girls.  Amber will also widen the genetic pool in this Country which I feel is a big advantage.  I think it unrealistic to expect to widen the gene pool with Servals alone.  There are very few of us, outside a zoological park, with the facilities to keep a large wild cat that needs an enclosure of at least an acre and has distinctive needs peculiar to a wild cat that are not shared by a domestic.