A golden chest with emeralds

Having a great deal of experience with Scottish Folds, solids and tabbies, I could not stop thinking about the combination of silver and gold shaded color coats and rich green eyes, that other cat breeds have. After actively searching for five years, I purchased my first silver shaded green-eyed Scottish Fold named Lourdes. Her father was a Chinchilla Exotic, but I was not put off by this fact at all. Scottish Folds do not have the breeding base with the same color coat. The addition of Exotics and Persians was necessary and justified because those Exotics did not have the extreme facial features, and had a somewhat suitable bone structure. The first offspring from such breeding (Scottish + Exotic) did not have hardly any facial characteristics that could be attributed to Exotics (which became more defined in later litters), and had the following features:
- very small, badly folded, and pointed to the sides ears, that would rise by 6-7 months
- large, round, rich-green eyes, that were set too close to each other
- flexible, but short tails
- very small in overall size, (as an adult Lurdes weighed in at 2.5 kg), weak bone structure.

In addition to Lourdes, I purchased Tosha - a black and silver mackerel straight with very large, wide-set, light-green eyes and a snub nose. Tosha had a contrasting coat with lines that weren’t very defined, his head was round, he was large in size, weighed 7.5 kg, had a stretched frame, and tall powerful legs. In his genealogy on the mother’s side there were occasional Persians silver tabby and point, and on the father’s side silver-shaded diamonds, folds, and gold spotted Scottish fold who was also Lourdes’ ancestor.

The first litter had 3 kittens: a Scottish fold with silver-shaded coat, a black and black mackerel straight, and a girl with a fairly rare silver-shaded-point (Chinchilla color-point, with large light lavender eyes, she is currently used in a Chinchilla color-point breeding program).

The second litter had 4 kittens: two silver tabbies, and two spotted orange kittens. Never have seen new born golden kittens before, they looked unusual and different from brown tabbies because of their truly orange heads. They were a golden spotted Scottish fold named Mormot and a gold-shaded Scottish fold named Menuet (had a tabby pattern coat till she was 8 months old). At this point I started planning my next steps. A couple of different directions were taken. Both animals were actively involved in the breeding program. Mormot was sent to another city, where he was paired with a brown blotched tabby and white Кошка straight named Estina, resulting in Miron (brown spotted tabby with white) and Marica (brown blotched tabby with white). Both cats have a bright coat, orange with brown eyes with a greed rim. Both will be used in forming the genealogy base to get golden bi-color offspring. The litter from Mormot and his doughter (straight with black marbel coat) had five golden colored kittens (two marble, tow spotted, and agouti), but all the kittens were straights.

Breeding Menuet with a black-silver mackerel straight Chester (from the above mentioned golden spotted Scottish Fold) produced a litter of four: Daewoo (gold spotted straight), Discovery (gold shaded fold), Dodge (black-silver fold), and Daihatsu (black mackerel fold); the last two had yellow eyes, small frame, and not very dynamic tails, hence were excluded from reproductive work.

A year later, the first pair mentioned (Lourdes and Tosha), in their third offspring had four kittens, all Кошкаs: Omega (silver spotted fold), Oxy (gold spotted straight), Omela (black-silver shaded fold), and Odelia (silver shaded point fold), the last two kittens had badly folded ears and were excluded from further breeding work.

When breeding Omega and Chester were received a black mackerel straight, black-silver mackerel fold, two black-silver folds with ticking, and gold mackerel kitten with extremely light green eyes.

The overall first generation of kittens had some typical “exotic” facial features, and surprisingly none had long hair.

For further breeding work and setting in the breed features inbreeding has to be used. For example Deawoo + Lourdes, Daewoo + Omega, Daewoo + Menuo, Mormot + Oxy, Mormot + Lucia (offspring of Omega and Chester), Daewoo + Кошка offspring folds of Mormot and Estina, and so on.

The addition of Persians and Exotics is not justified it at this point. Currently there is a large enough amount of quality breeders of British cats which serve better for the purpose than Persians and Exotics.

Also, in plans is the development of the golden bi-colors. Belkin, a black marble straight bi-color with green eyes (one of the parents is an American Short Hair) was included in the program. Daughters (folds) of Mormot, Menuo, and Lourdes will also be used in that program.

When working with gold colors important things to keep in mind are:
- breeding silver+silver can produce gold, if both parents have it present in their blood line
- gold can also be achieved thru breeding gold+gold, gold+silver (blood line), gold+brown tabby (blood line)
- breeding two brown tabbies can not result in gold
- breeding silver and brown tabby (without gold present in the blood line) will not produce gold in the first offspring
- breeding two golds will never produce silver, but may result in gold and brown tabby
- breeding gold+silver(blood line) produces gold, silver, brown tabby

Many breeders often mistake brown tabbies for the desired golds, but true golds always have a thick apricot colored undercoat and green eyes. Brown tabbies always have dark grey-brown hair just above the roots, some being lighter and some being darker; and a yellow or walnut (maybe with green rim) eyes. The most important rule when it comes to breeding golds, is to avoid false gold and bad breed characteristics and strive to achieve an ideal golden Scottish Fold.

Writer – Rumjantseva Nadezhda
“Rumfold” cattery
e-mail: rumfold@yandex.r