How Rare Are Brown Cats. A brown cat is an exceptionally rare feline to find. They are usually found more in shelters because of their less attractive coat.
Most cats that have a brown coat coloration do so due to common ancestry, which makes it relatively easy to locate breeds that consider this the normal coloring at birth, like Savannahs or Bengals.
How Rare Are Brown Cats
If a cat has a brown coat, then it’s because it either has the seal or chocolate gene variant. Almost every cat who is not tuxedo or black and white will have one of these variants. The cinnamon gene, however, is even rarer because there are very few breeds out there that are known to come in both seal and cinnamon variants. Just like the Havana Brown cat, this cat is the only breed that comes in “true” chocolate, making it a pretty fascinating creature to consider owning if one so desired.
History
In the nineteen forties, some very prominent cat breeders in Britain decided that they would like to mix two of England’s most famous breeds in order to create a solid brown cat.
So by breeding a shorthaired black cat with a chocolate-point Siamese, which is both natural bicolor chocolates.
Breeders of mixed heritage were created and became known as Havana Browns or “brown Orientals” in their country of origin which was the UK.
The cats first came to North America in 1954, where they were eventually recognized as Havana Browns, rather than their UK counterpart, the Brown Oriental.
Genetics
While cats that are brown are easy to find, those with black coloring in their coats hardly ever appear.
They do exist, and even as recognized coat color in some purebred lines; the reason for the rarity involved gene variants that work to reduce the black pigmentation of a cat’s coat resulting in a brown appearance.
Interestingly, cats with a brown coat color had a mutation of the gene that produced eumelanin.
The rarity all comes down to recessive genes, melanin, and melanin’s two structural components eumelanin and pheomelanin.
Cinnamon Cats
Most people visualize the color of sealskin when they hear about the cinnamon coat color of a cat. But brown cats with this coat color look slightly lighter than red or reddish-brown.
The light brown color is closer to what we think of as smoky light brown. Cats with the genes b1/b1 are cinnamon-colored but not oatmeal-colored.
Cinnamon cats might produce kittens that will display more light brown, most probably between twenty-five and fifty percent light brown, but if they were to display b/b1 genes.
It’s the recessive traits for chocolate and cinnamon coats again and even fewer kittens produced will be oatmeal-colored.
FAQs
Brown Cats: Why Are They So Scarce?
Fifty percent of brown cats born have the homozygous phenotype. Nevertheless, breeders prefer heterozygotes to homozygotes because of their resemblance to black cats.
Homozygous for non-black (brown) color variants for the gene that suppresses the production of eumelanin has been shown in domestic cats.
What is the Rarest Cat Color?
The rarest color of the cat is Albino. The recessive genes in true Albino’s damage their TYR gene, causing them to produce no melanin from the pits that are located in their skin.
This results in a cat with pink skin and white fur which tinges pink, too. Their eyes tend to be light blue or pink as well.
What Is The Value Of a Brown Cat?
Havana Brown kittens alone can cost a bit of dough, but there’s so much more to these kittens than meets the average eye.
For example, it may not be easy to get your paws on authentic Havana Brown kittens. The pure breed that is three months old can be found for anywhere from $800 -$1,500 or even higher.
Price will all depend on quality, age, and the breeder you choose as well as where you live and what market the kitten has been advertised for.