siamese kitten with brown coat

Question
I just bought a 8 week old purebred seal point siamese and the color of the coat on the body is acutally brown. The points are dark, almost black. But shouldn't the coat be creamy white? What would cause this and is it a defect? Thanks.

Answer
Hi Dee.  Yes, the body should be pale on a kitten this young.  Seals are never quite ivory on the body, more of a light beige, but a kitten shouldn't be brown.  An adult seal point's coat will be darker, and many seals will end up being a dark brown color all over by the time they are a few years old.  A brown kitten is going to darken up even further.

Were he to be shown, it would be considered a "defect" of sorts.  In fact, seal points often have relatively short show careers due to the fact that their coats darken so much earlier than the other colorpoints do.  Of course, this is strictly aesthetic, and it shouldn't be considered a physical defect.  It also doesn't mean he'll make any less perfect a pet.

The only two things I can think of that can cause this are that you don't have a Siamese, or that the baby was raised in a very cold home.  The gene that causes the Siamese color pattern is temperature sensitive.  The light areas occur as a result of warmth.  In the winter months, many Siamese will be darker than in the summer months.  If he was raised in an exceptionally cold home, then it may potentionally cause his coat to be darker than normal, and his next coat may be lighter.

Is it possible you have a Tonkinese or a Burmese instead of a Siamese?  If you got him from a pet store instead of a breeder, maybe they had their facts mixed up.  Tonkinese and Burmese are also colorpointed cats, but their coats may have less of a contrast.  A sable Burmese kitten can look like a dark seal point Siamese, but he won't have blue eyes.  The Tonkinese comes in varying degrees of distinction between the colorpoints and body color.  Yours might fit a natural mink or a natural solid.  A natural mink has aqua eyes, but a natural solid would have green or yellow.

Other than that, I'm not exactly sure, but I bet he will make a fabulous pet all the same!