The Spotted silver tabby British Shorthair Black silver mackerel tabbies are a real favourite of ours.Īs with all tabby patterns, they can come in any colour and any pattern combination. The original Whiskas cat is a black silver mackerel tabby, although they have now also used a Classic Silver tabby, and even a spotty one too. Think of Tigger! Mackerel tabbies are beautiful, stripey cats a little like zebras. The Mackerel silver tabby British Shorthair

This is being done particularly in red and cream British Shorthair cats, because their tabby patterns are for more visible than they are in other colours. So by using ticked tabbies, we can ensure that our kittens' tabby patterns have minimal effect and are therefore much less likely to show through. The breed standard for a non-tabby cat requires that a ‘self’, or non tabby cat, does not have a tabby pattern showing through on their fur. Some people are working with ticked tabbies to introduce the ticked tabby gene to their non-tabby cats.

Interestingly, all cats are tabby cats, but some have a gene that masks the tabby appearance. A silver ticked tabby British Shorthair cat has a silver undercoat with black tips (or blue, chocolate, etc depending on what colour the cat is). The ticked tabby gene restricts the pigment in the hair to the tips. The ticked gene is an additional gene that works on top of the underlying tabby pattern. The ticked silver tabby has a very interesting appearance. There are 4 variations on the tabby gene, and each results in a different appearance in the tabby pattern: The ticked silver tabby British Shorthair This removes the pigment from the hairs, giving the silver effect rather than a more cream-yellow effect of a non-silver tabby.Īll silver tabby cats also carry one or two copies of the Agouti gene, which is the gene that is responsible for the tabby pattern. The most common silver tabby, and the one that people think of, is the black silver tabby.Īll silver tabby cats carry either one or two copies of the silver gene. All silver tabby cats can come in all of the basic colours of British Shorthair cats: black, blue, chocolate, lilac, red, cream and tortie.

Classic tabby