Your feline cat is a tortishell and she is pregnant she has had four litters of many kittens but not once has she had a tortishell what are the chances of her having a tortishell?

Answer 1

So first let me tell you how gets get tortise shell color. It happens because the trait for orange cats is dominant and on the X chromosome, females are XX and males are XY, each parent gives one Chromosome to a new offspring, the female can only give X because she only has X, the male can give an X or a Y, if he gives an X, the offspring will be XX or female if he gives a Y the offspring will be XY or male. Traits are either dominate or recessive, when you get a trait from each of your parents, the dominate one is passed on. the orange gene (O) is carried on the X chromosome; for this reason it is sex-linked. Males normally only have one X chromosome and so if a male carries the orange gene at all, he will be orange. Females have two X chromosomes; if both X chromosomes carry the orange gene, then the cat will be Red. However, many females carry the orange gene on only one chromosome, which allows the black-based color to show through in patches. This combination of orange and black is called Tortoiseshell. So your female has an X with the orange gene and an X with the black gene, so to get tortishell kittens she needs to have female kittens with a black or orange male, there is no gurantee though she will always produce lots of orange kittens, but if you get lucky with the right male she may have another little tortise shell daughter

Thank you for the intelligent answer. From the author of the question.