Sometimes a Great Notion - The Silver Tabby

by Judy Boyko

Mt. Hood I'll Be Back
Silver Tabby LH Exotic

There is no color of cat lovelier than a clear-coated silver tabby. They can have the best body and type but, if that coat is tarnished, it ruins the whole effect. A silver tabby should have clear ground color and absolutely black stripes. When the coat is parted, it should be snow white underneath all over.

When a silver tabby is born the first thing I do is dry it off and look under strong light to see if there's any tarnishing, First I look on the back of the neck and around the butterfly that's where it usually shows up first. Tarnish doesn't disappear with age; it just gets worse. I have a couple of girls that had tiny tinge of tarnishing on the back of their necks and has gotten worse as they matured. A good silver tabby when born will have light ground color and pattern that looks like its been painted on. Whether they will have good color as an adult can be determined as soon as they are born.

Sometimes one has a very light pattern (almost blue looking) which darkens as it matures and that one may ultimately have the best color. The good black pattern is usually best at about 8 months of age. I can usually tell at birth if a silver tabby will be a LH or SH. If it's a SH the whole pattern will be there spinals and all. With the LH I will usually not see the spinals until later.

I first started breeding shaded silver Persians in 1990 and decided I needed more type in my silvers. I met several nice people and one of them was Joyce Giese (Airlia Cattery). She offered me a white male with Sierra, Kitty Charm, Marhei and several silvers on the bottom of the pedigree. Joyce began working on the silver tabbies in 1982. She began with a chinchilla, Ch Bonneville Sadie Sid of Safron. Sadie had extreme head type, something not seen often to this day on silvers, particularly on chins. She bred this female to GC Lullaby Hallelujah of Charmyr, an extreme black out of GC, NW Prim-Pet Yankee Doodle Dandy, DM and GC Lullaby Allusion. This breeding produced Airlia's Abigail. Abigail is also the mother of GC Airlia Adonijah of Appleblossem. Adonijah is the sire of Tiffany of Pajean who was mother of GC, NW Pajean Trinket Love (cat of the year), silver tabby.

Mt. Hood Etch A Sketch

Airlia Genesis, the white masking silver boy I got from Joyce, was extreme with huge yellow-green eyes. I loved his open sweet look and big eyes. In the meantime, I saw some shaded silver exotics another friend of mine had produced, I feel in love with them. She told me she was getting a silver tabby exotic female and that the seller also had a male for sale. I decided to get this boy and when I picked him up at the airport, I could not believe my eyes. He had a pattern like an American Shorthair and also had extreme type. I really didn't know much about silver tabbies and how rare it was to get one that looked like this. Another friend, Marly's Hylton (Charmyr Cattery), had been breeding cats for 25 years and taught me a lot. Marly's came over to see my new exotic boy and said this is probably one of the best silver tabbies in the whole world. This boy was more extreme than most exotics being shown. His name was Ch Belfalas Silver Bullet (Coors). He had 174 grand points but was too shy and sprayed like crazy to continue showing him. He was a Grand Supreme in TICA. His pedigree was Silvering Hts, Sundowner and several silver lines. The pedigree was 3/4 shaded and chinchilla silvers.

Then Donna Degroot, another friend (Prideomine Cattery), offered me a black female Persian out of GC, RW Prideomine the Sting, DM. I bred this girl to Coors and got a black female exotic, which I kept. The friend of mine who told me about Coors told me she didn't need the girl anymore and made her available to me. This girl was out of Coors and a shaded silver exotic. Her pedigree on the bottom was all chinchilla, shaded silvers and a few goldens. The top was the same as Coors' pedigree, which were about 3/4 silvers. I bred my white, Genesis, to her and got a LH silver tabby boy. He was beautiful and had silver tabby color like I had never seen before. His ground color was chinchilla silver and pattern was black. He looked like a white cat with black pattern. He had big huge eyes and a beautiful open expression. His name is Mt. Hood's I'll be Back because one day I had hoped we could show our LH's. This boy is where the color has come from in my silver tabbies today.

GC, RW Mt. Hood Silver Nitrate
Silver Classic Tabby Male Exotic
CFA's 3rd Best Exotic, 1998-99

1 am extremely fortunate to have produced typey cats that had pure silver lines only a few generations behind them. This is the reason for the good clear color. I'll Be Back bred to the black exotic girl produced GC Mt. Hood Etch-A-Sketch. Thereafter, Pat Helmick gave me a blue tabby exotic girl (Larpa's Katie) and from that girl I got GC Mt. Hood Silver Nitrate, 3rd best of breed a few years ago. Nitrate has matured into a beautiful boy since he was shown and is now producing nice silver tabbies which will be shown this year. This line matures slowly so patience is the key.

Silver tabbies are not always the end results, even breeding silver tabby to silver tabby. Brownies and smokes may be born so it can be disappointing when preferring silver tabbies. Sometimes the best kitten in the litter will be a silver tabby LH. In addition, if they are all SH then the best will be a brownie. When I do get silver tabby they are usually clear coated; however, one silver line I have been using does occasionally produce tarnish. Tarnish cannot be bred out. When starting with a silver tabby, the best colors to bred to are blacks or black smoke to produce the best colored silver tabbies. One of the worst colors to use is another silver tabby with tarnishing.

Breeding Silver Tabby Exotics is certainly a challenge and I still have a long way to go. I'm hoping to improve my ears, doming, and bodies without loosing the good color. Keeping the color will be the biggest challenge. I was fortunate to have good mentors and friends to help me along the way and to share cats, joys and heartbreaks. These are the people I have mentioned above in this article. Thank you so much. And last but, not least Didier Dieufils and Pat Helmick for their friendship and their beautiful cats.

Two Nitrate Daughters I plan to Show During the 2000-2001 Show Season

Mt. Hood Notion

Mt. Hood Lola

Judy Boyko
Email: jjboyko@gte.net
Visit the Mt. Hood web site