Colours of the British Shorthair

The Colours
Most people think of a British Blue as being the colour of the British Shorthair breed.  It is certainly the most popular and well known colour but in actual fact there are literally hundreds of colour & pattern combinations being bred all over the world.  At Cuddleton British Shorthairs we can produce twelve different colour combinations including Cinnamon based colours.  We are the first and the only breeder in Australia that can breed Cinnamon cats.
So lets start with a quick lesson in colours.

Base Colours

Cats come in four base colours, Black, Red, Chocolate and Cinnamon.  White is a special gene that makes the hair grow with no pigment.  If the cat did not have that gene it would be one of the four base colours.  Think of white as a coloured cat with the colour switched off.




Dilute Colours

Another set of genes acts on the four base colours to make them a dilute version of themselves.  Black becomes Blue, Red becomes Cream, Chocolate becomes Lilac and Cinnamon becomes Fawn.







Tortoiseshell
Tortoiseshell is a mix of two colours.  Red is a funny colour gene in that it is located on the X chromosome in cats.  Boys only get one X gene but girls get two.  When girls get an X gene with Red and an X gene with another colour they show both colours mixed together.  The result is a tortoiseshell.






White Spotting (Bicolours)

Yet another gene is responsible for producing bicolour British Shorthairs.  It affects the way the colour pigments spread along the kittens bodies in the womb.  It spreads out and down the spine but in kittens with the bicolour gene it slows the spreading of colour down so that the colour doesn't reach their chest or feet.  That is why bicolours have a random pattern and every one is different.

Tortoiseshell and white cats are more patched that a standard tortoiseshell.  One is more blobs of colour and one is more a blend of colours.  This is because the white spotting gene also makes the colour genes on a tortoiseshell clump up into patches rather than spread out all over.

Other Patterns

British Shorthairs also come in colourpoint and tabby patterns.  The colourpoint pattern has blue eyes and tabbies can have green eyes.  We have stuck with solid and bicolour so we can concentrate on copper eyes.

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