# British Shorthair: eye colour development



## BSH (Jul 28, 2010)

I have searched and searched but can not find an answer to my question:

_How long does it take for the eye colour to fully develop in a BSH kitten?_

I know what colour eyes my two 15 week old kittens have, it's just that their eye colour is quite feint compared to what they will be eventually (I hope!).

Can anyone shed some light?


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## gskinner123 (Mar 10, 2010)

Sorry, I'm going to repeat myself from something I said on another thread 

Eye colour development in BSH (the only breed I can talk about with experience; I know nothing about other breeds) varies hugely. Mine rarely seem to have what looks like promising eye colour at 12-15 weeks old but I'm very often pleasantly surprised when people send me photos when their kitten is a little older, and the eye colour is often lovely (a very deep orange).

Converely, I have a breeder/friend who's kittens almost always have a very dark muddy/brownish eye colour by 9 weeks which you just know is going to fab as an adult and develop very quickly.

Whilst it's no hard nad fast rule, if the parents have good eye colour then offspring 'should' follow suit but that doesn't always hold... if the parents have poor'ish eye colour then, generally speaking, you'd be quite lucky to get really good eye colour in their kittens.

It also depends on the breed line - some develop the correct eye colour very early on - in other lines it can take literally months and often the 'set; adult eye colour isn't fully developed unjtil they're well past a year old.

Bit late now, but I'll post a couple of photos tomorrow just the show what I mean in the previous paragraph. A blue-cream girl I had from a friend a few years, at 13 weeks old, had appalling wishy washy green eyes and was sitll only marginally improved by 6 months. By 12/15 months it's a vibrant orange.

Having said all that I guess we are talking orange eyed BSH and not blue or green as for colourpointed or silvers?!


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## LittleAlfie (May 9, 2010)

Its weird because Alfie at 9 weeks when we got him, had absolutley beautiful green eyes, which he still has, and from what i can tell hasnt changed a bit since the day we got him.


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## BSH (Jul 28, 2010)

gskinner123 said:


> Having said all that I guess we are talking orange eyed BSH and not blue or green as for colourpointed or silvers?!


Many thanks. I have a Blue and a Black Silver Tabby. I look forward to seeing the photos


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