calico cats

Question
dear jessica,
 my mamma cat once had a female calico cat that was grey,orange, and white. how rare is that without the black? also my momma cat just had kittens on june 1st it looks like the only male cat may be calico. the strange thing is right now it looks like he is white,black and grey with some orange coming in.  i know it is hard to tell just being a couple of days old but how rare would that be with four colors? and if he is not sterile does that make him worth anything?
  thank you for your time and i hope you can shed some light on this for me    
         jennifer

Answer
Hi Jennifer,

What you had with the female is called a "dilute calico".  Rather than white, orange and black, they are white, cream and gray.  This is caused by a recessive gene that suppresses the pigments that cause red and black fur.  Although somewhat common in cats who are bred for this color, because the gene is recessive, it's not very common in cats who are not the result of a breeding between chosen parents.  I have fostered over 200 cats and have had only two dilute calicos appear out of the blue.

As for this newborn, a male cat with 4 colors would be extremely rare.  If the colors stay as he develops, he is most likely what's called a torbie, or patched tabby.  A patched tabby will have areas of gray with black stripes and areas of light orange with dark orange stripes.  Sometimes they will also have white areas.  Like calicos, males only account for about 1 in 3000 births.  And out of all those males, only 1 or 2 in 10,000 are fertile.  So if he was fertile, you would have a very rare cat, indeed!  Unfortunately, it is generally not a good idea to breed these cats because we know they already carry one mutation.  This makes it more likely that they carry other mutations that could cause a deformed litter.  Hence, a male calico, fertile or otherwise, is not often worth a lot monetarily speaking.  However, they are worth a lot of pride to their owners!