Hello to all our Birman Friends;

This will be our first of hopefully many Sharkar Birman Newsletters. We will attempt to include items of interest to many of you. We realize the vast majority of Birman owners … own "Birmans as pets" … so Sharon and I will keep that in mind when choosing topics for our newsletters.

The topic I would like to address today is one of Birman Colors. The vast majority of inquiries we get for kittens usually ask for a specific color. One of the very first things I suggest to perspective owners is that like a new automobile, the day you drive it off the lot, color is VERY important.. But 2 weeks later… color seems irrelevant assuming you like the car. The same thing seems to be the case with the Birmans we place. I smile when I think of our beginning. Our first girl was a lilac, one I bought for Sharon. When we bought her lilac was without question our favorite color! Then I saw a lynx….soooooooo soon we brought home a seal lynx… guess what? … Lynx was now my favorite color! Then I became aware of Torties (money color/ 3 color) … hmmmmm you get the picture…Torties became my favorite!

Today we have 7 Birmans and using our 3 males in combination with our girls we can produce every Birman color there is given help from Cat Heaven. Of course the permutations are fairly large considering the relatively small number of colors we have. I can’t imagine having just one!

Before talking about the colors possible. I must talk about color points. This color pattern gene is present in many breeds of cats. It also crosses over into other species. I know that there are also color point rabbits. Perhaps the best known of the color point cat breeds is the Siamese. At least in my eyes it is too bad that breeders have changed the Siamese breed so much. Today’s Siamese are now very long and angular, traits that do not appeal to me. I actually owned a Blue point Siamese when I was in my 30’s. BUT, she went back to the breeder 3 weeks after arriving here… her personality and mine didn’t mesh! There are also color point Rag Dolls and Persians. Did you know a Rag Doll breeder crossed a Birman male with their Rag Doll female to introduce color points into that breed??

Color point is simply a trait (i.e. Gene) that pigments the color on the extremities of the coat… to include; ears, nose, front and hind feet and tail. One will also note that most color point bodies will also darken slightly with age… but that depends on the basic color involved.

OK, what are the basic colors you ask?