Cat Chat Feline Forum

My cat is changing colour! She is 13, and I only acquired her a few months ago - her previous owner, a friend, passed away and no-one wanted Lucy, so I went & got her. And as she settles in she is going more and more chocolate brown to ginger! Her diet is similar, she's moved to a no-smoking environment & it's a hard, not soft water area. Why is she changing colour?

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I think it is natural for "black" cats who are really very dark brown to become paler with age. My first cat, Sally, certainly did. Her tabby markings which when she was a kitten were only visible when the sun shone through her fur were noticeable in ordinary light when she was 12-13. Her black whiskers also turned white. At the time I put this down to the sun bleaching her fur - she became much less active in old age and spent far longer sleeping in the sun!

Bob's black coat has a gingery brown tinge to it in the summer. Willow is always jet black - but she seldom ventures out for more than a few minutes at a time. Bob sunbathes, I wonder if this has something to do with it?

Melanin is the pigment in a cat's coat, and I believe that heat can affect the production of melanin, so lying in the sun might explain why some black cats go ginger. I think it works in the same way that colour-pointed cats like Siamese develop darker colours on their extremities like ears, nose and paws. It can also be affected by diet, as certain amino acids are needed to create the melanin. I found a great article on this once .... I'll go look.

Having said that, I don't think, in itself, it's a sign of anything being wrong, as such, though it can be affected by diet. It's not, in itself, something to worry about!

This isn't actually the article, but it will do!

http://www.cat-world.com.au/why-do-some ... own-colour

My black cat has as well a bit anyway. He has tabby markings underneath you can see in certain lights. He has alot of brown and his roots are grey(perhaps he needs to borrow my nice & easy hair colour for his roots lol). He as the others are all moulting like crazy also now which is driving me mad. x

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How interesting! I have three tuxedo blacks - one has definitely a chocolate tinge to her fur and a gorgeous ginger-brown strip across her shoulders which you can see when she sits in the sunlight. Then there are the two all-blacks - the girl is jet black all over, but even for her when she's in the sun there's a brownish halo to her fur sometimes. Same with the boy, but his black is less black, if you know what I mean. The blackest black we have is two large black spots on our nearly all white calico female. She has patches of ginger and black on her face and ears, some ginger spots and a 'tiger' tail, and these two large black spots on her back. These are the truest black - in the sun they just soak it up with no chocolatey tinge whatsoever. They are perfect black. It's almost as if all naturally black cats have a tinge of colour in the sun - just related to the melanin in the hair - but for her, the colours are cleanly split into discrete patches.

All very interesting - thank you!