# Ginger female cat - discuss!



## Anna89 (Sep 18, 2008)

Hi,

It was recently mentioned that a female ginger cat is not very common - what do you think? Obviously I have one - here she is...









Excuse the manky damp in our old flat!!

She's just 5. Does anyone else have one?

Anna.


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## SSamm (Mar 9, 2006)

heres one











heres two (shes got no white)


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## SSamm (Mar 9, 2006)

she seems to be getting more ginger everyday, will get some new pics later.


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## pigglywiggly (Jul 19, 2008)

they very popular in maine **** circles.


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## Mrs Mental (May 5, 2009)

:flrt: I want a ginger cat!!! They're all lovely!


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## Pipkin28 (Oct 6, 2007)

My little girlie, Millie was a ginger nut! I miss her. She liked to crash out on my lap for a snooze, not like Mallika, she doesn't 'do' physical contact! Not even for a bribe, oops, I mean treats!!


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## Ssthisto (Aug 31, 2006)

They're not amazingly common, because it's not easy to get homozygous-for-Orange.

The only ways to do it are:

Orange tom X Tortoiseshell queen
Orange tom X Orange queen

The former requires some luck (you could just get more female torties and male orange OR black babies) while the latter produces only orange babies.


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## feorag (Jul 31, 2007)

They might not be as common as other colours, like brown tabby and black, but they aren't particulary rare. 

The red gene (that produces ginger cats) is a sex-linked gene, which means you have to have a ginger dad and a tortoiseshell or ginger mum to get ginger females - that's all.


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## Pipkin28 (Oct 6, 2007)

I know Millie's mum was a tortie and in that litter was a ginger male, ginger female, tortie female and i think just 1 black and white male - it was 15 years ago (age is creeping up on me and the memory is seeping out!), so it might have been 2 black and white's!

:lol2:


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## Siouxzy (Sep 20, 2009)

I've not seen a ginger female before! I have a ginger Tom, a female Tortie and a black/brown female... all same litter. The mother was Tortie and Dad was a huge ginger Tom! I want one! :flrt:


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## Anna89 (Sep 18, 2008)

This is interesting! Never venture in this forum!
Thanks for the replies! Those two look very nice!!
Sox is very affectionate! Likes her strokes and jumps on my lap every time I sit down!


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## feorag (Jul 31, 2007)

Putting it in the very simplest terms and disregarding any colours the females may carry, male kittens take their colour from their mother and female kittens take one colour from their father and one colour from their mother. So if you mate a ginger male to a non-ginger female (in this example let's say she's black), all the females born in that litter will be torties, because the female kittens take one colour from their father (ginger) and one colour from their mother (black) and so are born black and ginger. The males will all be black like their mother.

As I said in my previous post, to get a ginger female you have to mate a tortie or ginger female to a ginger male. In other words both parents have to display the ginger colour. So the resulting female kittens take one colour from their father (ginger) and one colour from their mother (either ginger or black) and are born either ginger *or* tortie. If the mother was a ginger female, the males will be ginger and all the females will be ginger too, but if she was a tortie female, the males will be either ginger or black.

So, as there are quite a lot of ginger toms out there and quite a few tortoiseshell females, there can be quite a lot of ginger females too.


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## Pipkin28 (Oct 6, 2007)

Eileen, you are the fountain of all knowledge!! :notworthy:

But it really doesn't matter what colour they are, cuz they're ALL gorgeous!! (Unless they've got a face like a smacked arse!! :lol2


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## feorag (Jul 31, 2007)

Not at all - only where the colours affect my chosen breed, other than that I know next to nowt! :lol2:

And I totally agree, it doesn't matter what colour they are, they're all gorgeous!!

_Except for the ones that look like they've been hit in the face with a shovel, but that's just my own personal opinion!! :grin1:_


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