Someone recommended this but I can't remember who?

Genetics are really hard for me to explain in a single chapter. Basically, genetics are literally what parts a being inherits from its parents. In our case, we're talking cats.

There are two color genes for cats: red (sometimes called ginger) and black. Red and black are both dominant genes. Black has a mutation (so one cat was born with a screwed up black gene, and then it had kits who carried this mutation and it lives on) of chocolate, as well as another mutation of cinnamon. "Dominant genes" means they're hard-core and will cover up a recessive gene. They're shown with capital letters.

       Recessive genes are basically weak to dominant genes and are represented with lower case letters. They are carried along on and not visible, rather than being shown, which is called a phenotype.

      Letters? Ashlyn, what are you talking about?! A gene is represented with letters:

      Black is represented with BB, because it's dominant to chocolate, which is represented with bb, because that is weaker to black. Chocolate can be carried on, because it is recessive. So if a chocolate cat and a black cat had kittens, they'd have cute little black kits since black > chocolate.

      Before you go on thinking chocolate sucks, chocolate is actually dominant to black's other mutation: cinnamon. Cinnamon is repressed with b1b1, since it's even weaker than an already weak chocolate.

      Recap:
Black = BB
Chocolate = bb
Cinnamon = b1b1

      "But Ashlyn, what about the previously mentioned 'red'?!"

      Don't worry, red (aka ginger) is what I'm getting to now. Red is the super mega overlord, and is dominant to the almighty black. Red can be represented with O since it has no variation like black, and if there is no red present it can be represented with lowercase o.

      So what's dominant and recessive in these coats? Every single coat I just listed are all actually dominant genes, which as I said before, are mega awesome and shown with capital letters usually (Choco and cinnamon are rule breakers lol)

So our list for dominant in order of power lvl is

Red
Black
Chocolate
Cinnamon

      These are all dominant, so the recessive genes in cat pelts are as follows (in order of power lvl):

Cream
Blue (aka gray)
Lilac
Fawn

      These are all the weakened version, or dilute versions, of red, black, chocolate, and cinnamon. So red weakened is cream, black is blue, Choco is lilac, and cinnamon is fawn. Dilutions are represented with the letter D.

DD = No dilution
Dd = no dilution, but they carry the trait
dd = dilute

      WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Very good question. It means, that when you take your mates and stick them in a punnet square, you can now find out what kits they will have (realistically.)

      What is a punnet square, you ask? Well, here's a picture:

Okay so this is a punnet square!!!111!! It's cool, right? Mom's genes go on the side, dad on top.

       Basically, all you have to know (really) is if your cat carries the dilution gene and if they carry cinnamon, because these are recessive genes. As well as their pelt color of course haha.

      As an example, we're going to take a ginger she-cat who doesn't carry chocolate or dilution. Her genes can be represented with OOBBDD

OO = she's ginger
BB = she, like every other cat, carries black, but it won't show on her because she has the almighty red gene.
DD = not carrying dilution

    For our example, her mate will be a black tom who carries the dilute gene, but does not carry chocolate.
His genes can be represented with ooBBDd

oo = carried the red gene like every other cat, but since it's lower case it means it isn't present in his pelt.
BB = he has black fur
Dd= carries dilution

       Let's pop that into our punnet square!

       Okay so you're either thinking 1. What the heck just happened, 2. She has rly bad handwriting, or both.

     What I did was I put in the first half of mom's alleles (it was OOBBDD, so I took OOBBDD, and it became OBD) and put that in her first box, and then I took the second half of mom's alleles (so I put in OOBBDD, so it became OBD again) and put that in for the second box.

      I did the same this with dad. He was ooBBDd, so I put in oBD for the first box and oBd for the second box.

       Then I did the punnet square for them. You literally just combine them like a ship name.

      Mom had OBD for her first box, dad had oBD for his first box. They made an OoBBDD kit.

      Mom had OBD for her second box, dad had OBD for his first box. They made another OOBBDD kit.

      Dad had oBd for his second box, mom had OBD for her first. They made an OoBBDd kit.

      Dad had oBD for his second box, mom had OBD for her second. They made another OoBBDd kit.

      This means they have a 50% chance of an OOBBDD kit, which is a ginger boy (red overrules black) it's a boy because it's on that side of the punnet square. These kits won't carry dilution.

      This also means they have a 50% chance of an OoBBDd kit, which is a tortoiseshell girl, and they will carry dilution.

      In summary of our example, a ginger she-cat and a black tom will have tortoiseshell she-kits and ginger toms. And, as is always the case, 50% chance of male, and 50% chance of female.

In the case of black and red parents, the female kits will most likely be Torties and male kits will follow mom's coloring.

"ASHLYN, WHAT ABOUT MY PRETTY WHITE CATS?!!?????!!!"
White cats are just regular colored cats with so much white marking on them, they look white.

      Now this lovely photo I just drew really quick is a picture of the same cat. The black is them genetically, and the white is the cover-up. White is a cover-up. You see it all the time in cats: white muzzles, white paws, etc, but it can also cover entire pelts. This cat will carry the black gene for black kits, but he appears white on the outside because of very heavy white spotting. Here's a secret:

WHITE IS DOMINANT TO THE ALL HOLY RED.

      So what does this mean for their kits?! Well, if they are secretly black but covered by white and their mate is ginger with a white paw or something, they're going to have tortoiseshell kits with a lot of white. (So, calico for those of you who like to get technical) when I say a lot of white, I'm talking anywhere from 30-70% white.

A very cute couple showing off their very cute ginger and white tabby kits ;;;;;-)

One kit has somewhere around 50% white, and the other has a a good 70-80% white.

Okay that's all for my super duper basic cat genetics!! Whoever suggested this, please say because I cannot for the life of me find your comment rip

Any questions, ASK.

A lot of this was taken from my own education (Mrs Cissna's 8th grade science holla holla), a YouTube video (I'll try to add it soon), as well as stuff I've learned over time thanks to years of being a warriors addict. Rest in piece again.

ART BY ME although I did get the picture of the blank punnet square off google.

-tea