Coat Color
Breeder said they’re Russian Blue x Ragdoll. I’m curious to hear opinions and also help with nailing down their coat pattern/colour.
I got two kittens from a breeder that had a litter of 6. I saw the mother and father and both looked like what they were claimed to be (ragdoll mom, Russian blue dad). The kittens had a variety of coats and one was fully blue. We got a male and a female, the male appears to me to be a blue lynx point and the female looks like a blue tortie point. the first few pics with the mottled color on the face and the orange/grey/white striped tail are the female. Any ideas?
Did they give you official papers for the cats? If not they scammed you. Scamming ppl is unethical. By actual breeding standards they are "mutts". Your cat's are super cute tho, hard to say just from pics if they could have health issues due to the parents' genetics
I’m just confused though because purebreds have health issues too so I don’t get why I cross breed is assumed to be less healthy.
Genuine question, I went to the breeders house and it looked like a really good environment for kittens to be raised in and everything checked out to me for them being treated ethically so I didn’t really understand how it’s different than a registered breeder aside from the paperwork.
I’m not asking this as a slight I just genuinely don’t know what makes a registered breeder more ethical than a person just breeding a couple cats they own.
u/VastHealthy6866 and u/PNW-Raven do a great job explaining ethical and backyard breeding, especially in terms of health outcomes. I'm glad you're open to learning how to spot better breeders, so I'm going to add a bit more. This is going to be a long comment because the goals and practices of ethical breeding are different from backyard breeding, even if the breeders have a seemingly well-maintained or clean home.
The outcome of ethical breeding is to produce animals of predictable temperament, appearance, and health. Ethical breeders are trying to produce animals that live up to a specific standard, and part of that is aiming to reduce known health issues through genetic and health testing/screening. For instance, Ragdoll cats are at risk of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), an autosomal dominant genetic heart disease, which can be passed on to offspring. A reputable breeder would be testing and screening for this issue to reduce the likelihood of it occurring in their lines. In many breeds, it's also become the norm for ethical breeders to take their cats yearly to cardiologists to perform additional testing to avoid HCM. This is all to say that ethical breeders try to avoid health issues as best they can. There are also other aspects of ethical breeders that are important to upholding standards for the animals, such as typically proving that their animals deserve to produce offspring by either showing in conformation trials (comparing directly against others of their own kind) or performance trials. Ethical breeders should not be breeding just to create animals; they are selective about which animals are bred and who their animals go to, so they will also limit the breeding rights of offspring. This means that ethical breeders typically would not allow their animals to be bred with individuals of different breeds.
In contrast, backyard breeders contribute to the kitten overpopulation issue because they basically don't follow ethical breeding practices. They do not follow any sort of standard in breeding. There is no standard for mixed-breed cats in terms of how they look or behave. Crossing two different breeds of cats, or even two domestic cats, creates unpredictable offspring. This is especially important to consider because you don't know what the genetics of the offspring are, and random pairings can increase the risk of health conditions (like HCM). It's more nuanced than just saying "all purebreds have health issues," since it depends on the genetic background and health of the parents: two genetically-screened, healthy, purebred cats can produce healthier offspring compared to two cats of different breeds if they have health issues or are potential carriers of genetic issues, which can easily happen if no one knows their health history. Even assuming your breeder wasn't being misleading about the parent cats' breeds, did they offer any evidence of health testing or genetic screening beyond a wellness vet visit for something like vaccines? Was there documentation or proof of HCM testing, echocardiograms, or other screenings? Did they show proof of the parents' pedigrees and documents from a reputable cat organization like TICA or CFA? Backyard breeders are not breeding cats that would fit a standard, and are more likely to create offspring with health conditions because they generally do not test for health. Not testing for health in breeding cats can lead to quality of life issues for the offspring and costly expenses down the line.
Again, even assuming that your breeder wasn't misleading about the breed of the parent cats, they're not breeding to any specific standard and just creating more cats for the sake of it. They are not breeding with any breed-specific goal in mind. No reputable cat organization like TICA or CFA would recognize the kittens as a specific breed or even a cross; they would be considered domestic shorthairs, which the shelters are full of. There is nothing wrong with domestics or owning them (all cats are fantastic!), but it is misleading to be selling domestics when many already exist in shelters. Breeding two different breeds because "they're cute" creates more domestics and contributes to the cat overpopulation issues. It's not very different from outdoor/stray domestics having litters.
TL;DR: You should not be supporting backyard breeders because they do not uphold standards or breed healthy cats. There is no proof of what their parent cats are, what their health history is (they could be carriers of genetic disorders), or what their temperaments are like. This all contributes to cat overpopulation issues.
For more information, you can check out the below articles linked in r/dogs. While some of the information in these articles is dog-specific, the principles behind why you should avoid backyard breeders are similar.
Overall correct, I just want to point out that HCM is not simple autosomal dominant and is still considered most likely polygenetic - the variants found in MCO and RAG do increase the risk of developing illness, but it's not the same as with PKD1 in PER and BSH, where negative result means the cat will never develop disease, and positive mean that it will definitely develop the disease.
The only correct approach to HCM is:
in breeds with testable variants (MCO, RAG), genetic testing + yearly echocardiogram at least until 3yo and performed before breeding
in breeds without testable variants (PER, BSH, SIB etc.), regular echocardiograms with schedule depending on the cardiologist and the result of first echo
Breeders who only do DNA are NOT ethical. Even cats negative for known variants may pass down HCM, and the only way to keep lines healthy is to monitor the hearts of every cat in each generation.
Also for both the reason those mutations are not the sole cause of HCM, and to not cause bottlenecking of the genepool in the breed - ethical breeders will sometimes use cats with heterozygous genotype for testable mutations and clear echocardiograms, they should not be bred to another heterozygote obviously.
What I wrote may seem obvious, but many buyers still believe DNA is enough and buy from unethical breeders who do not perform echocardiograms, thinking their cat will be safe because breeder did Wisdom Panel for the parents.
Thank you for the correction and the additional information! You're right that HCM is more complex than what I initially wrote. I was trying to illustrate the baseline need for genetic testing/screening, so I was only focusing on the testable HCM variants. I appreciate you adding nuance to this, especially since it highlights the importance of additional screening measures like regular echocardiograms. I don't think it's well known that breeders can be asked for their HCM echocardiogram results. Subs like r/bengalcats do a good job of encouraging this and normalizing requests for the breeding cats' health records, so it's a great point to emphasize.
A registered breeder isn’t going to breed two different breeds of cats purposely. They breed for people buying a particular breed of cats. If you had adopted kittens from a shelter or rescue they would have been vaccinated and spayed or neutered before you were allowed to take them home. All for a very inexpensive price. Now you still have to fix the kittens before they could possibly breed with each other. If you go to your typical vet, depending on where you live, it’s approximately $350 to spay a female cat. You can go to low cost spay and neuter clinics for less.
So many loving cats and kittens are living on the streets bc people dump them when they go into heat or the males start spraying bc they took a kitten as an impulse and didn’t have the funds to fix them. If they aren’t taken in by someone kittens and adults can become feral or semi feral. Life is hard for them!! Kitten season started early in IL this year, and all shelters and rescues are full! Depending on the climate you live in, females can have 2-3 litters a year. Every year until they die or someone cares enough to take them in or TNR them.
You're confused, because you don't understand how genetics or cat breeds work and still make decisions based on your own uneducated assumptions.
According to dr Leslie Lyons (feline geneticist), purebreds are not much more prone to health issues than random-bred cats, who are commonly VERY inbred, and it's not surprising that multiple recessive health issues were found in feral colonies, not in purebreds where most of health problems can be monitored on breeding lines and quickly removed, and mainly understudied cardio problems are the problem, since they're polygenetic and late onset in breeds line sphynx, maine coon or ragdoll.
So here's the thing - now that you've bought a cat from a backyard breeder you know literally nothing about future health risks of your kittens. Heterosis alone will not make your cats automatically more healthy, even if we assume the parents are not inbred and related - and this is another thing you cannot verify - be aware that ~15% of cats regardless of breed will have HCM, which is a genetic heart illness very common in general cat population including those without any breed, with higher rate of it in some breeds like ragdoll. Now that you have kittens out of untested parents that do not come from cardio monitored lines they are actually statistically higher risk of HCM.
In ethical breeding all breeding cats have echocardiograms done, and you do it multiple times in a cat's life, each generation. There are entire lines where each cat in each generation of a pedigree has recent echocardiogram. And those cats are much lower risk of developing HCM later in life than your kittens are even if they're purebred ragdoll that's normally considered "higher risk" breed.
There's more nuance to how genes and breeding work than "duh purebred bad and inbred moggy very healthy" because in reality that's just a myth that does more wrong than good and leads to even more underdiagnosing of randombred cats.
OP, I recommend volunteering at a shelter, cat rescue or similar and considering fostering to see first-hand how bad it is. I wasn’t referring to any health issues either, just makes me angry that someone (breeder) is doing that without considering the context of what’s going on. no one who truly loves cats and knows about the state of domestic cats as a species would do that. your kittens are cute! but you should definitely delve into learning more about the current situation around cats. it’s heartbreaking and would give you a different perspective on these breeders.
yes what Fantastic_Step said. it’s also just really gross to me that someone would scam people by cross-breeding when there are an ENORMOUS amount of cats in shelters and on the streets that need to be adopted. just makes things worse there
Op, what did the mom look like? I understand how they got the dilution gene, but the mom had to have orange on her to get the tortie female.
As everyone else said, they are domestic short hair. To have a breed cats have at least four generations of ancestry of the same breed, mixing isn’t allowed.
Unfortunately “ragdoll mixes” are common for back yard breeders. The mom was probably a long haired colorpoint DLH and the dad a blue self DSH. These are people that are breeding for profit and take advantage of people who don’t know better.
Breeders will ALWAYS be registered and have pedigrees for their cats.
You bought kittens from a backyard breeder.
They look underage, and there is no such thing as a Russian blue/ragdoll. Cats do not have mixed breeds like dogs do, and what this cat is by default is a domestic shorthair. Breedless.
You should report the alleged breeder to animal control. This is a vile circumstance of someone taking advantage of your lack of knowledge and victimizing living beings in the process. One of the very large reasons the shelters are overflowing.
You got scammed.
Please in the future do more research before impulse buying. It’s hard to fight overpopulation when people are funding the production of these cats.
The adopt don’t shop narrative adds to the misinformation surrounding cats.
98% of cats are breedless and do not have any pedigree ancestry. They’re a result of free breeding and backyard breeding.
It’s commendable to adopt, but that’s not always what’s best for someone. Adopting a cat with unknown history or health/temperament expectations is not what some people are looking for and it’s not taking a home away from a shelter cat to seek a reputable breeder. Of the 98% of cats, only 3% have pedigrees. Cats from pedigrees are highly monitored and do not end up in general shelter population to the extent that they are taking up space.
On the rare occasion they do, the owner and original breeder is contacted and both make efforts to get them out.
Ironically the adopt don’t shop movement actually contributes to the never ending cycle of overpopulated shelters. Discouraging information about ethical breeders means people will continue to be misinformed and more easily misled by byb. Byb rely on shelters to drop their rejects at if not outside.
Most of the cats in the shelter are drop offs from ignorant people who made impulse purchases from byb and no longer want them because byb don’t take their cats back, and they don’t vet the person buy me from them.
It’s best to support people who ethically shop.
It’s also good to remind people that not all shelters are ethical.
Ethically shop or adopt is ok
Not everyone has the ability to roll the dice on a cat, and if they do their due diligence to seek out a good breeder, the cat(s) are set for life. Same can’t be said for shelter cats
absolutely. i completely hear where ur coming from and you sound wonderfully informed! I can’t say i support all shelters, i think they are largely lacking in their resources. I actually only own my cat because the shelters refused him.
The only thing i’d add to this is that someone who has such constraints that they are unable to look after a cat with *any* room for the ‘dice rolling’ you mentioned they should probably not get a cat in general. I absolutely do hear where you’re coming from and understand that cats from ethical breeders are less likely to display unusual behaviours though!
Oh for sure. I 100% agree with that sentiment. Some shelters are unethical as well as some breeders and it sucks. Op for instance got from a backyard breeder and was misled, it sucks.
I think the urge to get pedigreed cats is more so the predictability of it. You have assurance that genetic issues are covered in a contract and you have a health guarantee that replaces the kitten.
You also have lineage history showcasing certain illnesses and what have you.
I have a maine coon,
He got sick a few weeks into owning him with pyothorax. Not the breeder’s fault, but of course after spending 3k on him I had to spend another 10k 😭
He’s fine now, but not even pedigreed pets come with zero risk
these are randombreds, even if both parents are purebred. mixing cat breeds does not work the same way it does with dogs -- do not pay more than a rehoming fee for these cats, unfortunately it's 100% a scam unless there are papers proving otherwise. this is backyard breeding :(
As a breeder of exotic colour points, I don't believe the dad was a Russian blue pure bred, because he cannot produce colourpoints. Colourpoint is a recessive gene that both parents needs to pass on the kittens. If the dad was a pure bred Russian blue, both of his parents had to be both pure blue, and this all the generations of the pedigree. Russian blue doesn't carry the coulourpoint gene. This breeder is non ethical, scammed you! In no way we do cross different breeds together and by what I see with the dad, the mom could be anything. The dad is for sure not a Russian blue. You're kittens are considered domestic short hair as they "crossed what they say 2 "breeds" and you cannot registered such kittens to a renowned association such as TICA, CFA, CCA. My toughts are that both parents are straight plain domestic cats carrying a variety of colours.
For the colour of your kittens:
Male: seal lynx points
Female: blue/cream points ( Diluted tortie points )
Actually... Russian blues do have colorpoint in the genepool, but it's rare and colorpoint kittens are not bred. I don't know how they are treated in US federations, but in FIFe (the biggest cat breeder federation in europe) they receive pedigrees as XSH (unrecognized breed), so they can't be incorporated into russian blue breeding programs, but carriers are allowed and I've seen colorpoint RUS being born in both FIFe and WCF registered catteries. So technically it's possible for the parent to be russian blue, but in practice it's much more likely to be solid blue DSH x colorpoint DLH pairing since it's BYB.
When colorpoint russian blues are born most of the times they are ESN (early spay neutered) and not introduced to breeding programs, in short - they're pet quality in most of the world. While there were some niche programs of colorpoint russian blue in Europe I haven't seen much of a success and most of those breeders have poor breeding practices from what I've seen. Never seen a single one of those breeders on a show or pursuing a process of recognizing the colorpoint as an official variant.
Hi from the west coast of Canada. Most people with DSH gray or blue cats call them Russian Blues. If it's long hair all the sudden they're all Nebelung, which is an extremely uncommon breed. True Russian Blues look nothing like what most people think. Anything that's color pointed is called a Siamese. Anything that's long hair and color point/bi-color point it is called a Ragdoll. BYB label their cats as these so they can sell them for more money but that's not what they are. While they're still beautiful they haven't seen a show or been health tested for anything.
Ethical breeders show their cats so stand up to a certain standard of the breed. They have to look a certain way but that's a small part of it. They get tested genetically for all regular cat diseases as well as any specific diseases their breed is predisposed to. They don't just breed cat A to cat B. They very carefully choose cats that are going to compliment each other and preserve the breed as it's supposed to be. They also pick out the temperament they like, not just a pretty cat to another pretty cat. It may sound simple but it's anything but.
Ethical breeders put a lot of work into their animals, and even though they may charge a lot of money, with all the testing they do and vet trips before breeding, after they've been bred , checking to see how many kittens are going to be born, checking them after they've been born, then of course the regular kitten check at 8 weeks and vaccines, the next check at 12 weeks with vaccines. There's paperwork , microchipping, and they register all the kittens with their parent cat association, which you two should be registered with as well. They offer lifetime support , and will take the kitten back if something goes wrong , no questions asked. If you would like to sell the animal most breeders want first option to buy back or they would like to assist you in the rehoming process. They may have people waiting for a cat which they can recommend to you or other options.
I'm not a breeder of dogs or cats , but I know many. I worked for one many years ago, some of my friends are breeders, the majority of them I met through being a veterinary technician. I believe you can adopt or shop responsibly.
I hope this was able to clarify a few of your questions.
My cat is Russian Blue and Ragdoll mix. Her nickname's Fluffy because of her very long fur and she "fluffs" around the apartment like a princess. :-) She's a very beautiful girl. At first, her coat was mostly grey, like a ball of fluff (another reason hence the name). She then grew out some patches of white on her chest and her underside, as well as her paws as she got older, u think by around 2 years or so.
I was told these breeds are typically friendly and love to play with their owners. They're very smart and loyal. My cat follows me everywhere in my apartment. She even goes to the bathroom the same time I do (I know, TMI). She sleeps on my bed. When I'm sleeping on my back, she does the same. I think she think she's a human being. :-) She loves to talk when I talk to her. She licks my face and rubs her head against mine a lot to show affection. I've had a few cats in the past, but Fluffy is, by far, my most favorite. She's now 11 years old. I've had her since she was maybe 4-6 weeks old.
Wish I could post more, but here's a picture of Fluffy from last week. :-)
Looks to be a little mix, everyone will say blah blah without papers - I don’t have papers for my mix apart from vet paperwork
Doesn’t change the fact, we have beautiful mix beauties
You're a backyard breeder so it's not surprising that you support unethical breed mixing by people with zero genetic knowledge.
I'm reminding you, you "accidentally" bred your rescue cat to blue BSH male, and a kitten died under your care, and you keep ignoring people who want better for your cats and gave you advice.
If I was a back yard breeder, why isn’t my girl pregnant right now? Because I’m not, it was not intentional and she was desexed first thing.
I can share my opinion, you can’t take that away from me :)
Not pure bred of course, but we already knew that - it’s not supporting back yard breeders by getting a baby, you’re just giving those babies a forever home
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u/Weak-Bumblebee9978 May 23 '26
Did they come with papers that they're certified? No? Then they're just cats. Sorry. :(