Updated...

Hello all, I have been reading on the internet regarding cat genes and I now know some really interesting facts!!

The boring stuff :-

- Genectic makeup of a cat is contained on 19 pairs of chromosome. One chromosome from each pair is from "Mama", the other from "Papa".

- Each chromosome is also known as DNA

- The sperm has 19 chromosomes and the egg contains 19 chromosomes, both finds one another to become matching 19 pairs of chromosone (unique), the full compliment needed for a cat.


The interesting stuff :-

-In case of hair length, in most cases, short hair is dominant over long hair!
A cat need two copies of long hair allele to have long hair.

e.g. If the kitten gets a short hair allele from one parent and long hair allele from the other, the short hair will become dominant. Kitten is very likely to be short haired.
However, cats with one copy of long hair allele can pass it one to her / his offspring. Cat A = short-hair with one copy of long hair allele

Cat A when mated with another DSH (with recessive long hair allele), there is a 25% possibility of kittens with long hair, and 50% will have short hair but carry the long hair allele.

Cat A when mated with another DSH (without recessive long hair allele), kittens are all likely to be short haired, but 50% will carry the long hair allele.

Cat A when mated with another DLH, there is a 50% possibility of kittens with long hair. 50% will have short hair but carry long hair allele.

e.g. A DLH female mates with a DSH male (with no recessive long hair allele), very likely to produce short hair offsprings!

- Males control the sex of offspring.

- Most tortie are females. Tortie boys are rare and has a gene malformation. Tortie boys are almost, always sterile (mandul...i think that's the word)

- Orange colouring are only inherited from a female cat. Meaning that an orange male cat can't have orange kittens unless his mates are carrying the orange gene. (As such, if your kittens are orange but the mom is tortie, don't think that the father cat is "ORANGE"!! Tortie normally has orange gene.)

So, before you start breeding cats, do a little research on cat's genes!!!! (I know of some expecting a DLH to produce DLH kittens by allowing it to mate with any tom, dick and harry out there!)