 |
| Gildethros Turkish Angoras |
| My name is Meg Shortlidge and I have been breeding Turkish Angoras since 2002 and started showing in 2004. I specialize in fully hearing, blue and odd-eyed whites and colors produced by the silver/smoke gene. Oddly enough, the most useful tool in breeding for hearing, blue-eyed white kittens is to use colored cats in the breeding program. Although deafness can be carried genetically as a physical defect, it seems more common for deafness in all white cats to be caused by the color white itself. This is very complicated genetically, but proven by the fact that the percentage of deaf, blue-eyed white kittens can be reduced from 50% to less than 25% by breeding our gorgeous white cats to colored cats. I've managed to keep our percentage significantly lower than the 25% by only keeping fully hearing white kittens for our breeding program. In cats, the color white is actually a mask that covers color underneath. this is why we often see Kitten Caps, blotches of color, on top of the heads of kittens that are/will be totally white. Those underlying colors are in fact why we can and do get colored kittens even when we breed our white cats to other whites. And so it goes that the colors under the masks of our white Turkish Angoras have a direct effect on what colors their colored offspring with be. Although I could not love my adored Tornado any less even if her fur was GREEN and she is in fact deaf, I firmly believe that it is more responsible to breed for fewer deaf kittens. By breeding our whites almost exclusively to colored cats, to date we have only ever produced five deaf kittens. We get a fairly equal 50/50 split of white kittens to colored kittens and the vast majority of our whites are blue or odd-eyed. So please don't let anyone tell you that you can only get a deaf, blue-eyed white Turkish Angora as a pet! Nonetheless, the end result of the breeding practice of almost exclusively breeding our white cats to colored cats is that we do get far more colored kittens. Although it would be much easier to just breed for great show type and not worry about deafness or what colors we get, I love the wide array and many different appeals of the silver and smoke colors as much as I love my adored whites. From the wolf-like appearance of the black smokes to the dreamy aura of color worn by a shaded cameo, the silver gene comes in every color. Just pick a color in the solid colors, add the silver gene and you've got a smoke. And in the tabby class, you've got everything in silver: what we call a silver tabby in the United States is better called a black silver tabby in most foreign registries, and a cameo is a red silver tabby. Blue silver and cream silver tabbies too. And depending on the amount of silver present in any one cat's coat, you get darker colors like a correcly colored black smoke with a fairly narrow smoke band (see my wonderful Minue!) to those rare shaded colors where the silver gene is expressed so much that the color is only visible in the tip of the hair. My shaded cameo male BeauBeau is in fact the first shaded Grand Champion Turkish Angora in the CFA. I've been so lucky in our few short years of breeding TAs to get such great colors on fabulous cats that produce outstanding kittens. Don't worry though! Nothing will ever replace the exquisite beauty of a blue or odd-eyed Turkish Angora in my eye. But throwing that white mask into the mix means that I still get EVERYTHING for colors. Ultimately I need to have whites that all mask silver/smoke colors, better yet shaded silver colors to get more of those dreamy shaded color kittens. Yes, to get silver and shaded colors reliably on our colored kittens, I need to get our whites to mask those colors as well. Unlike the breeders who work mostly on colors and those who work pre-dominantly with white, it will take me more time to follow my chosen path to the end of the rainbow. But what a beautiful, fun filled tip it is! So come on in and enjoy our cats and kittens! ~ Back to Home Page ~ |