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What's new you might ask? It is time
to start some new silver lines. This little girl is the start for
myself and Stacy from Texas Star. We decided to work toward our
own silver lines something brand new and fresh off the press.  |
| This silver marble is named Texasstar Ice of Cazpurr. She is the 2nd generation of a silver American shorthair cat that I brought in from Canada. Which began a new silver line. I will breed her back and send the pick silver kitten out of that litter to Stacy for the 3rd generation. Then Stacy will breed her back and send me the 4th generation of our new show able silver line. |
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| Silvers are a new color to our TICA championship class. The new color "Silver" was added to the championship class in May of 2004. I have been working with silvers over the last 3 years now. I have had some very good mentors in the field, which have been a big help to me. I first researched and studied the new silver color before I was involved in breeding the silvers. I am enthusiastic about working with this new color. It's an exciting challenge to choose the right combination of cats. Babe seen on the right is the result of much contemplation and from my stud Wildcard. He did a good job! |
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In my research about the silver color I have
found that the brown spotted tabby's color pigments develop differently than the
silver spotted tabby's. We are learning that the majority of the silver
color pelts on this spectacular new color is lightening up as they grow.
This is just the opposite of the Browns because they darken as they grow which
has been known to take away from the contrast of the cat.
As a show breeder we want to breed cats that not only have a high degree of
contrast, flash and a very luxurious quality to their coat but also pass
it on to the next generation of Cats. Breeding is all about
the future! Please look at the kitten to the right you can see the
clear good contrast. |
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I choose my RW QGC Goldspurr Wildcard of Cazpurr to breed (A Tarzan line used for snows) because coming from a snow background I felt I would stand a better chance of not getting any tarnishing on the kittens. The female we used was "Lakewood Silvercrystal of Spotsalot" because this particular sliver line had only one single Silvergene cat called Sisko who was throwing very nice donut rosettes when put with the right females. Sisko was also known for his kittens not having or developing any tarnish as they grew.
Tarnishing is another problem with breeding the Silvers. Tarnishing is a burnt orange color that can run down the back, legs, face and even can be found in the centers of the rosettes on a cat. Sometimes I have heard it said "It looks great in the center of the donuts" and it might! I do however think that tarnishing takes away from the silver color as it was meant to be "Silver" not "Burnt orange and Silver" but Silver! I personally do not want tarnish of any kind which is why we picked the two cats we did for the breeding that produced Babe.
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Lets talk about Glitter on the new and exciting color of silver. I
have known many breeders to confuse the burnt orange color running down
their kittens back as Glitter. Glitter on a silver takes on an
appearance of an aluminum foil type look. Silver glitter is sliver in
color on the tips of the hair and shines as if you are looking at a piece of
aluminum foil in the sunshine. It is stunning!
NOTE: It is not burnt orange or any type of color running down the back "that would be a tarnish". We are now finding that breeding two cats together to produce a Silver without the new silver kitten developing tarnish in the first year of birth is extremely hard to achieve. It is also hard to pick out a silver kitten for a breeder. Why is that?
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That is because the silver kittens that will stay real silvery looking have to be extremely dark silver in color at birth. That is not very attractive and is not what we as breeders are use to seeing when looking at a potential kitten for breeding or showing. |
To train our minds in picking out the darkest kitten is not the easiest task to do. That is a fact! I have a collage of pictures below of babe. Please feel free to look at the collage of pictures. Would you have picked babe as a breeder as a kitten? Probably not! This is what we need to be picking however for our breeders but like I said easier said than done! :)
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This is a collage
of pictures of Babe as she grew through the weeks and months. It is an
excellent example of how the silver color develops as the silver kitten
grows. In growing babe's silver color lighted
up and she has turned out to be a stunning very silver looking female with
nice ink jet spotting and NO tarnish on her. By using Wildcard
(Tarzan) lines I feel it helped in aiding with the no tarnish factor.
This is a perfect example to show us all the
development a silver growing up from one week of age to 1year of age shown
below this text.
Babe at 2 1/2 years above Click here to see more pictures of Babe |
I would also like to show the out come of a nice silver kitten that is the lighter color and what happens to the look of this type of kitten. I don't have a collage of pictures for this but I do have some kitten pictures of some of my kittens and how they looked then and now. I hope it will be helpful to you!.
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This is a cazpurr silver female kitten. She is about 8 weeks old. She is in her fuzzy's and is as cute as a button! She is nicely black spotted with the lighter silver back ground to her pelt. Nice smaller ears and a nice thick tail. |
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Out come! This is the same kitten all grown up. Even though she is a silver she is a lighter silver in color almost as light as a snow. At a glance she could look like a snow! I feel this takes away from the nice silver shine and gleam that you find in kittens/cats like Babe! This is why I prefer the darker silver kittens over the lighter silver colored kittens. Please also keep in mind these examples of cats and kittens are "black spotted" examples. The even lighter kittens that do not have the black spotting may loose their contrast completely as they grow. I would stick with the black spotted silvers since we have learned they lighten up as they grow. |
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Ok guys that's the scoop of how it is!
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A lighter silver at birth or |
A darker silver at birth |
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You tell me which one do you like best? Please feel free to look around my site and I hope that this clears up a lot about picking out which type of silver kitten you would like to purchase in the future for a nice pet, breeder or show!
This outline that I have set forth above must be oked by me to copy or to use on any one else's site!
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