Are Orange Cats Almost Always Male

The reason that a cat is red or black is due to his or her genetic makeup and the chromosomes the cat inherited.

Are orange cats almost always male. Although the research is far from definitive male. This cat is almost always male despite the extra X-chromosome. A male cat needs only one orange gene which he gets from.

Tortoiseshell cats have two different X-linked alleles X black and X o orange. It has to do with the X chromosome which has genes for fur color. Since females have two Xs and males have one X and one Y this means that a female orange cat must inherit two orange genes one from each parent whereas a male only needs one which he gets from his mother.

So a cat with black and orange fur must have two X chromosomes and therefore be a female. Orange tabby cat toms outnumber queens approximately four to one. Which almost 99999 of the time is sterile.

The gene responsible for the orange color is sex-linked resulting in a much higher likelihood that an orange cat will be male versus female. Well thats not entirely true. For a female cat to be orange she must inherit two orange genes one from her mother orange calico or tortoiseshell and one from her father who must be orange.

This is because the genes that code for the calico color pattern are carried on the female or X sex chromosome. Out of the 1 in 3000 calicoes that is male only 1 in 1000 of those is actually virile. Most orange tabby cats are male due to their unique genetics.

About all the calico cats are female and 75 of orange tabbies are males. Black coat color is not found in male cats. Only about 20 of orange tabby cats are female.