Tabby Kittens

The tabby cats pattern

The word "tabby cats" is so often used that some people think ‘a tabby’ is a certain cat breed.

But to be correct: in cat language "tabby" stands for a color pattern:

• most often stripes,
• sometimes stripes and whorls, or even
• sometimes spots and stripes.

The tabby pattern is found in many pedigreed cats today, and although there are many variations of each, the tabby pattern falls into four basic classes:

• classic tabby (marbled tabby or blotched tabby)
  a classic tabby pattern usually consists of a swirling pattern with thick stripes, similar to a bulls-eye on a dart board
  
   
• mackerel tabby (‘fishbone tabbies’) or striped with the typical ‘M’ on their head
  
   
• spotted tabby
  
   
• agouti tabby or ticked
  the hairs of the cat have small bands of color on them, giving the fur a ‘salt and pepper’ appearance
   
   

Of course we will better illustrated these tabby patterns with pictures of tabby cats in our next posts, but you can already have a preview with the tabby pictures above and below.

Orange tabby kittens

4 orange tabby kittens:
1 nicely posing
1 fed up kitten
1 kitten wants to escape through the window and
the last kitten wondering how the previous is going to succeed

Silver tabby kittens

Silver Tabby Kittens
showing the typical tabby ‘M’ on their heads

Siamese tabby kittens

Siamese tabby kitten showing the typical tabby ‘M’ on the head