The Color Tests are In

"Oh goody! More Evo for us!"

The Monday before Thanksgiving Mod Daeng, her six kittens, Bear Country's Alan Parsons Project of Burma Pearl (father of the litter), Gray Mark's Agate of Burma Pearl ("Aggie"), Lois True, and I all drove up to UC Davis. Our purpose in going to Davis was twofold -- first, to microchip all the kittens and the father (Mod Daeng and Aggie already being microchipped), and at the same time to have swabs taken for parentage, color testing, and for research.

A couple of days before our Davis trip I had taken the kittens in for a health checkup and their first shots. I also devised a plan to identify them. Given that I do not have a microchip scanner at home, I wanted to be sure to be able to distinguish them once the color tests were in. It was a twofold plan: first, to shave a small section of hair on different legs on each of the six kittens, and then to put little slim hairbands of different colors around each neck. Very scientific, ha!

I also had established a new cattery name in TICA and I plan to do the same if Mod Daeng is registered in CFA. I wanted to do this so that it would be easy for anyone to identify cats that I bred from Thai import lines. The cattery name I have been using for my Burmese is Burma Pearl (Burmapearl in TICA). Mod Daeng is a Suphalak. Supha in Thai means good or beautiful and lak or laksana means characteristic. Thus, a Suphalak cat means a cat of beautiful characteristics. And so I decided my new cattery name would be Suphapearl - meaning beautiful pearl. And as you know, pearls come in different colors just like Burmese!

I also decided to name the kittens - somewhat systematically. The names I chose are the numbers one through six in Thai.

Suphapearl Nueng (nueng is number one) no leg shaved, purple hairband
Suphapearl Song (song is number two) left front leg shaved, blue hairband
Suphapearl Sam (sam is number three) right front leg shaved, pink hairband
Suphapearl See (see is number four) left rear leg shaved, orange hairband
Suphapearl Har (har is number five) right rear leg shaved, red hairband
Suphapearl Hok (hok is number six) two rear legs shaved, yellow hairband



Suphapearl Nueng & Suphapearl Sam


After the microchips were all put in (the kittens were very brave!), Leslie Lyons came down to meet us. We talked about what we wanted to accomplish and then Leslie took us up to her lab. About half a dozen of her students gathered, and Leslie talked to them about the Burmese breed, Burmese genetics, and what we are trying to do to improve genetic diversity. We also briefly discussed traditional (my cats) versus contemporary Burmese and the head defect, as some of the students present were working on that project. She also gave me some background about the Korat genetic diversity project. One of her students is working with her on a scientific paper about the successful increase in genetic diversity in that breed that has been achieved through outcrossing to Thai imports.



Suphapearl See and Mod Daeng

Finally it was time to obtain DNA from the cats which Leslie did herself. She took swabs for us for the parentage and color tests, swabs for the Cat PHIR database project, and swabs for her lab's research. The test forms with the swabs were marked with the microchip numbers for each cat. As we took each cat out, the students were able to get a good look at them (and hold and cuddle each of them for a while!), and as they did we compared Mod Daeng's look to 21st century American Burmese like Aggie or Alan, and talked about the challenge of working towards achieving that look in Mod Daeng's descendants, while also achieving and maintaining greater genetic diversity for the breed as a whole.

Last week I received the reports from UC Davis on the color tests on the six kittens. As I expected, two are minks (Suphapearl Har and Suphapearl Hok) and the rest Sepias. All carry brown (the father, Alan, is a champagne/chocolate sepia). My one disappointment was that none of the kittens carry the dilute allele. We thought the father did but now it has been confirmed that he does not.

What are the kittens like in personality and conformation? That and more photos will be in my next entry which I plan to make this weekend.