Dear Breeders and Fanciers,
a lot of people ask me which cat produces which colors.We will try to explain it in an easy way:

The color of the cats is only carried in the X (female) chromosome.The males are XY.The Y being the male, non-color-carrying chromosome. Females are XX. Therefore, female kittens got their colors from both parents (they get an X from their mother and a second X from their father) and males get their color only from their mothers (they get an X from their mothers and a non-color-carrying Y from their fathers). This is also the explanation why females can be torbies or tortoiseshells, but male torbies or tortoiseshells are almost always sterile (they get an female X chromosome from both parents and a male Y chromosome from their fathers, making them XXY).

The recessive dilution factor can be inherited from either or both parents. In order to display dilute which is blue, cream and blue cream the cat must inherited a dilute gene from each parent. The dilution of brown is blue and the dilution of red is cream. It doesn´t matter if the cat is a tabby or a solid. The gene for solid (non-agouti) also must be inhertited from both parents in order for a kitten of them to be solid. Separate from the X and Y chromosomes is the white spotting factor which produces cats with white.

** when breeding two full color cats (black or red), or a full color to a dilute  (blue or cream) both parents must carry dilute to produce dilute offspring.

***white is no color – it masks a color. If a homozygous white which is a cat  carrying two genes for white, is bred to a colored cat, its kittens will be masking the other parent´s color   (heterozygous whites). A kitten who is heterozygous for white will normally display a spot or more spots of ist masked color. They disappear as the kitten matures.If a homozygous white is bred to a heterozygous white, , the kittens can be homozygous or heterozygous whites.If a heterozygous white is bred to a colored cat , the kittens may be heterozygous whites or the color or masked color of their parents. If both parents are heterozygous whites, the kittens may be homozygous whites, heterozygous whites,or the masked color of the parents. If both parents are homozygous whites, all kittens will also be homozygous whites. If you breed solid whites you should not forget the deafness risk! I would not breed a deaf white cat or white x white because the deafness risk is much higher than breeding a white cat to a colored cat.

Black smoke (black tipped solids or tabbies), blue smoke (blue tipped solids), silver (black tipped tabbies), blue-silvers (blue tipped tabbies),golden (brown tipped tabbies or solids) or cameo (red or cream tipped solids or tabbies) are produced by a dominant inhibitor gene which, depending on the strength of the gene, inhibits the expression of color at the base of the hair shaft.
The amount of shading can vary from minimal (the hair shaft is colored from the tip down to close to the skin) To extreme (color is limited to the tip of the hair shaft). You can determine the colors you will get out of your tipped cats by adding tipped to each color in the master chart. One of the parents has to be tipped in order to produce tipped offspring.