Gain More Information on Different Cat Breeds

"Hi! I am Dr. Adrienne Mulligan. I am the owner of Camp Verde Veterinary Clinic, and I am here today on behalf of expertvillage.com. I am here to speak to you about breeding cats. I wanted to talk just a couple of minutes about my favorite breed and what I learned when I investigated breeding this particular breed. The Balinese and the Siamese are very closely related; and to be eligible to be classified as Balinese or Siamese for the breeding associations, they have to have the, what we call, points, the ears, the tail and the feet be of a certain color. And there are four colors that are accepted: one is a blue point, one is a lilac point, one is a seal point, which is very, very, very dark brown and one is a chocolate point, which is a lighter brown. They have the same four requirements on the Balinese and the Siamese. Also they cannot have stripes. So in the coloring, in their face, they can’t have like tabby stripes, and if they do then they get called a different breed. So for the Siamese, if they don’t have the four colors mentioned, and if they have stripes, they get classified as oriental short hairs, so they don’t get to legally be Siamese. With the Balinese, if they are one of the other colors like a flame point, which is like a red or orange, or if they have stripes in their tail or their face, then they are classified as Javanese; they are the same cat it is all about color. So that is kind of a problem, and sometimes they will change. My lilac point Halle was sold to me as a Balinese, but as he has grown up, he developed some stripes, so technically he is actually Javanese. So my blue point, which was more like a Javanese, when I got him has colored up to be more like a Balinese, so that is little bit of a crapshoot. Now also when you are breeding these guys, you don’t necessarily have to stick to breeding the Balinese to the Balinese, you can bring in another breed like a Himalayan to get a certain color, as long as you are getting the colors you want. So it is kind of interesting; as long as what you produce fits the picture, then it can be registered as that breed. So it is a really odd way of going about it. So I decided it took a whole lot of genetics for me to figure out how to breed the Balinese breed. There are other breeds that are probably a little easier; the Maine coons are probably a little bit easier. But the only one I looked in to was my Balinese, and I got real scared, so that is the one thing I wanted to talk to you about, because that was my personal experience with exploring the possibility of breeding my favorite breed."