Feline paternity

[Carol Anne]

Can a cat have offspring from different Toms in the same litter. IE: A shorthaired ginger cat of ours once has a litter of 2 black&white, 1 slate coloured, 2 tortoishell and long haired black&tan.
Did she have a busy night or is this just nature??

[boxtops]

Yes, litters can have different fathers. Female cats ovulate when they mate, so they can release a second egg if they mate with a second tom.

[Barmaid]

I thought a cat could, but I don't really know. The litter my ASBO came from was 5 kittens. 3 we think came from a feral tom my friend had seen about; 2 we think was from the local farm cat who was much smaller and daintier. No idea whether that is true though. ASBO has the same colouring as his mother and the same size as his father (ie e-bloody-normous). The three in his "litter" were all variations on a theme of ginger. The other two were multi coloured.

[boxtops]

It is so, barmaid - my cat's siblings were tabby, and black and white.

[wolf63]

My two are brother and sister.

Frankie (in my avatar) is just your normal black and white annoying little pest of a tom cat.

His sister Princess Merlin is a curvaceous lady with a broad face and long black fur. She is pretty stupid and can be pretty aggressive too.

I asked the vet about this and he agreed that it could be due to the fact that cats "don't ovulate until they copulate" or just that the genetic pool os a normal moggie is pretty diverse.

Merlin is perched on the back rest of my chair as I type this - any moment she will leap onto the laptop. She is going to break it one of these days.