# BSH - cream or colourpoint?



## flosskins (Jan 27, 2010)

I'm getting a bit confused about the colours of my 2 week old kittens. Mum is lilac cream and dad is lilac so I had assumed I had 3 lilac and 4 cream but a couple of the creams are going a bit darker on their ears and tails so looks like they may be colourpoint. I know the dad carries colourpoint but hadn't thought mum would as the last colourpoint in her pedigree is a great grandparent. How old will they be before I can tell what colours they are? How will I tell if they are cream or cream colourpoint? If they are a darker colourpoint will they definitely be lilac colourpoints? And if the lilacs are going to be lilac cream at what age will this show? Sorry for all the questions!


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## gskinner123 (Mar 10, 2010)

The cp gene could have easily been carried forwards from the great-grandparent so you're right not to rule it out 

None of the cream kittens (BSH) I've bred have ever gone darker on their ears/tails so there's a strong possibility that yours are cp's. It's going to be a couple of weeks (at the very earliest) before you can tell the colours of any cp's... though if the 'creams' have developed a darker/'hotter' coloured cream on ears/tail then they might be more easily discernable as cream pointed. If it looks, or begins to look, more grey'ish then they are lilac or lilac tortie pooints. Don't forget that cream females are not possible from this mating so if you have any 'cream females' they are definitely cp females and will be either lilac or lilac tortie point.

i can quite easily understand how you might have mistaken a colourpointed for a cream but if you have a cream kitten(s) there AND cp kitten(s) the difference, already , in body colouration should be quite obvious - cp's will be very pale/white'ish and creams will be more pale yellow/sandy coloured... well, 'cream' really for want of a better way of describing.


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## flosskins (Jan 27, 2010)

Ah ok I had forgotten about the cream female thing. why is that again? Sounds like i have 2 lilac cps and 2 cream cps then as they are all very white not the buttery cour you see in older creams. i had just assumed they were born white and went cream as they got older. can i get cream cp girls? How will i tell the difference between lilac and lilac tortie?


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## gskinner123 (Mar 10, 2010)

flosskins said:


> Ah ok I had forgotten about the cream female thing. why is that again? Sounds like i have 2 lilac cps and 2 cream cps then as they are all very white not the buttery cour you see in older creams. i had just assumed they were born white and went cream as they got older. can i get cream cp girls? How will i tell the difference between lilac and lilac tortie?


To get cream/red of any description or pattern females you need the red (cream) gene present (i.e. visually) in both parents. Say, a blue-cream F mated to a cream M or cream F x cream M.

Cream BSH kittens usually go through some colour changes from birth to adult maturity and the shade of cream varies a lot. Nonetheless, a newborn cream kitten alongside a cp kitten - there's a marked difference in colour.

On blue-creams & lilac-torties it can be difficult to see the cream in a very young kitten. If you look carefully through the coat of what appear to be lilac self F kittens, you may find small flecks of cream hairs which is an obvious giveaway (it's often more apparent on the kitten's throat/belly) and sometimes there's two-tone mottling on the paw pads. Lilac-tortie cp's will obviously be even more difficult as the colouration on the points takes so long to come through. In any dilute tortie kitten, whether blue-cream, lilac tortie or lilac tortie cp, the cream often only starts to come through in the coat as the kitten matures but as a rough guess I would say that by 4 weeks you should be able to see some cream in the coat if they're torties... but some have very minimal cream even at that stage.


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