Oriental Shadeds - how are they different from tabbies?

Uk Gr Ch Chelanca Snowdragon
- 43ds red silver shaded

An Oriental Shaded is a tabby cat (of any pattern or colour) where the pattern has been pushed to the ends of the hair by the effect of the wideband gene.

Shadeds come in silver and standard (called goldens outside the UK).

Kittens often have quite a clear pattern but with time the pattern blurs and becomes diffused so that by 2 or 3 years old you can barely tell what the pattern was!

This is my Summer - you can barely tell she was born a spotty!

Summer is an apricot silver shaded.

This Oriental is Safari, black tortie silver shaded, daughter of Summer (with Frodo, caramel).
Safari's pattern was heavily mackerel as a kitten but here at 18months old it is beginning to disappear well.

Degrees of shading

A shaded must have over half of each hair shaft coloured with silver (white) or a golden honey colour.

Some hairs may show a remanant of the tabby pattern through to only the tip of the hair coloured with the main colour of the cat.

Tipped or chinchilla coat

The extreme of the shaded coat is where only the very tip of the hair shows the dominant colour of the cat. The rest of the hair is honey gold or white. The epitomy of this is the longhaired Chinchilla - long white (silver) hairs tipped with black.

It is worth noting that the silver gene in orientals originally comes from an accidental mating between a Siamese and a Chinchilla! With recent successes in breeding the Oriental Longhaired silver shaded we seem to be coming full circle!

The Smoke

Shadeds must not be confused with Smokes!

A smoke is a self cat ie NON TABBY where the base of each hair is silver.

The effect should be of a solid coloured cat and the silver should only be evident when the hair is brushed back.

Many thanks to Hamish for sitting still!

He looks Havana

... until you brush his hair back!