History

On July 3rd, 1965 Ann Baker of Raggedy Ann cattery in California, USA. had a litter of four kittens born to Buckwheat, a Black Self coloured female cat and Daddy Warbucks, a Seal Mitted male pointed cat. In this litter were two self coloured and two pointed kittens. The self coloured kittens were named Gueber, a Black male and Mitts, a Black Mitted male and the pointed kittens were named Tiki, also known as Toni, a Chocolatepoint female and Kyoto, a Seal Mitted male.

Raggedy Ann Tiki and Raggedy Ann Kyoto were registered as Ragdolls with NCFA by Ann Baker and Gueber and Mitts were registered with the same body as experimental Persians.

When Gueber was mated with Raggedy Ann Toy Ling, the offspring of Tiki and Kyoto, the resulting kitten was Raggedy Ann Adam, born 11th June, 1967 and he was also registered with NCFA as an experimental Persian.

For some years the pointed Ragdolls were the favoured ones and the self coloureds were ignored. Ann Baker did not bother with them either and gave them to a friend to care for but by the early 1970's, when she had formed her own registry, IRCA, she decided to reintroduce the self coloureds, or solids, because she then believed they were important to help maintain the size and eye colour of the pointed Ragdolls and she called them Ragdolls Tu. Since IRCA was not a recognised body the pedigrees of many cats, including self coloureds, registered with this registry were never recognised and tend to be 'controversial'. They are often seen listed on pedigrees from other registries as "Foundation".

Self Coloured Ragdolls, Solids, Selfs or Non-pointeds as we know them today, are now more widely accepted and many breeders recognise their valuable genetic contribution to the breed.  A self coloured parent with a pointed parent will produce a mixed litter of pointed and self coloured kittens because the self coloureds all carry the pointing gene, whereas two pointed parents will only produce pointeds. A self coloured cat is never bred to another self coloured cat because the pointing gene may then be lost from that gene pool.

In a self coloured Ragdoll the body and the points (nose and ears, legs and tail) are the same colour, in contrast to pointed Ragdolls, which have points which are darker than the body colour. Self coloured Ragdolls are available in all of the same colours and patterns as the pointed Ragdolls except that black replaces seal.
The self coloured kittens, or solids, are born  with full body colour and blue eyes but their eye colour begins to change at around 7 weeks of age and continues to develop to shades of green, blue-green, copper or gold as they mature.

Another genetic colour variation present in many Ragdolls throughout the World creates the Sepias and Minks.   This gene, originally from the Burmese breed, alters the basic colour of pointed Ragdolls.  In a Sepia the body colour is a slightly lighter colour than the points and in a Mink the body coat colour has a lighter shade than the points but not as light as in a normal pointed cat of the same basic colour.  This gene affects all of the colours available in Ragdolls.  Cats with two copies of the sepia  gene are sepia in colour whilst cats with a single copy of the sepia gene paired with a single copy of the sepia pointing gene are Minks. 

Self coloured Ragdolls may also carry a single copy of the sepia gene coupled with the dominant gene for self colour.  Thus they will produce self coloured and mink pointed kittens when mated to a normal colour pointed Ragdoll. 

We are captivated by the self coloureds, or solids, and are excited about our new venture allowing us the opportunity to be one of the growing number of Ragdoll breeders throughout the World who do not want this line to be lost but want to promote the Self coloured Ragdolls. We now have our first litters of self coloured Ragdolls. For our self coloured kittens we have added "Tu" to their pedigree name.

There are no sepia or mink Ragdolls in New Zealand at present but we hope that this variation will be imported in the near future.

We can trace our self coloured stud's pedigree back to the first non-pointeds, Raggedy Ann Adam and Raggedy Ann Tiki's sibling, Gueber.