They are very affectionate and love to play, get on well with other animals, and are generally calm cats. The silvered tabby variants have classic or mackerel marking patterns and are available in blue, red, and cream silver options so slightly fewer color options than the BSH but still an interesting variety. They come in solid coat, tortie, calico, tabby, bi-color, and parti-color patterns with the tabby variants recognized with and without silvering. The Maine coon is a giant of the cat world – quite literally! These cats are huge and sport large ruffs of fur around the neck area, ear tufts, and a fluffy semi-long hair coat. Maine Coon Kitten Maine Coon Silver Tabby You can find out more about this incredible cat breed here. In terms of silver tabby variations, the breed has a standard that recognizes the following variations of silver tabby: Black with silver ground coat, Blue with silver grey ground coat, Chocolate with chocolate silver ground coat, lilac with pale silvery lilac ground coat, red with cream silver ground coat, cream with a near white silver coat. They have a calm, warm temperament, and like to be around their wider family but are not necessarily lap cats – they are loyal but slightly aloof. The overall appearance is one that people have come to describe as the teddy bear of the cat world! The fur is short and dense giving a very plush appearance. Their bodies are stout with a muscular appearance and short thick legs. The eyes are round in a round face with big cheeks and a smiling mouth! They are a cat with a distinctive look – they have copper, orange or gold eyes unless they are black spotted tabby cats that may have green eyes. The British Shorthair cat comes in classic, mackerel and spotted tabby coat patterns. Which breeds feature these extraordinary cats? Well not all! Here we present the most common cat breeds that offer a silver tabby cat coat pattern British Shorthair Silver Tabby British Shorthair So you see – a silver tabby cat is not quite as simple as being a grey and black striped cat! A silver tabby could be a mackerel silver tabby or a spotted silver tabby cat etc. To further complicate matters tabby cats come in a variety of patterns, mackerel, classic, ticked, and spotted, which refers to the patterns of the darker markings on their coat. A cream silver tabby will have dark brown stripes and a fawn body coat that will……….well you get it! A red silver tabby cat will have dark orange stripes on a light red base coat which when parted will be white at the skin.

You can actually get a brown silver, blue silver, red silver, and silver cream tabby cats!Ī blue silver tabby will have full black stripes and a grey body coat that has white fur at the base when the grey body hairs are parted. Silver tabby cats is a phrase to describe a coat effect rather than a color. So a silver tabby cat is one where the agouti hairs, the base coat hairs under the black or darker stripes, have lost some of the individual color stripes that make up the agouti pattern – it does not follow that a silver tabby is a grey and black tabby (although some of the most popular silver tabby cats do actually appear this way). With this gene, the colors are reduced and the hairs at the skin are white – creating not a smoked tabby but a silver tabby cat! Silver Tabby Cat Color Options Normally the agouti hairs would have bands of several colors along their lengths. This means the black or darker hairs that form a tabby cat’s markings are unaffected but the underlying base coat agouti hairs lose some of their color. Silver tabby cats have exactly the same gene! Whereas, in a solid-colored cat the gene affects all hairs, in tabby cats the gene only interferes with the agouti hairs. But what does this have to do with silver tabby cats? When you part the fur you notice that the hair nearest the skin is white and colors towards the tips of the hairs! This is due to a specific gene, inhibitor gene I, that creates this effect in their coat.

This creates an odd effect on their coat where they appear to have a smoky colored coat. Have you heard of smoke cats? Smoke cats are actually closely related to silver tabby cats!Ī smoke cat is a full single-colored cat that has fur that is white at the skin end of the hair and colored toward the tips of the hairs. Read on to learn what a silver tabby is and which cat breeds are most likely to offer a silver tabby cat option.

Long haired silver spotted tabby cat