Colours of the Birman Cat

The birmans are colourpointed cats, like the siameses or ragdolls. That means that they have a darker colour in the points (face, ears, legs, tail and genitals) than in the body, where they have golden beige in all varieties. Another characteristic of the colourpointed cats is that to have the blue eye colour as deep as possible.

In addition, the birmans have a special feature, the white feet, called " gloves ", on both the front and back feet. Although this is a special characteristic of the birmans, it is not always easy to get it, since we can find many birmans with asymmetric gloves or too high or low (almost nonexistent) gloves. But at the same time, they have all the rest of the characteristics that make the birmans being wonderful cats.

As the rest of the colourpointed cats, the birmans born totally white and little by little the colour is coming. The darker colours have a development faster than the lighter ones. This also depends on the colour intensity of every birman.

The darkest colour (and the more common) is the seal one. Once this colour is fully developed, we can see a really dark brown colour, almost black, in the points, while the rest of the body is pale golden brown. In the following pictures, we can observe the evolution of the seal in some birmans. In the first picture is shown a seal birman with two weeks of age, with only the nose, the ears and part of the tail pigmented. This colour is evolving until get a more defined colour in ears, legs and tail, and the development of the mask begins, as we can see in the picture of the two months old birman. The mask is almost completely developed and the colour in the rest of the point is darker when they have one year of age, as is appreciated in the picture of a young birman. But the colour of all the points gets darker with the time, as we can see in the adult birman with two years and a half of age of the picture. The body colour also gets darker after some time until get a pale golden brown colour.

Guajira Sunny Queen *ES (Seal Birman Female - 2 weeks)	Fandango Sunny Queen *ES (Seal Birman Male - 2 months)
Guajira Sunny Queen *ES (Seal Birman Female - 1 year)	Leyenda del Alendérgole-E (Seal Birman Female - 2 years & a half)

The second more common colour is the blue , that is a dilution of the seal one and is shown as a grey colour in the points and the body colour is also very pale grey-beige. In the next pictures the development of a blue birman female is shown.

Tiya Sunny Queen *ES (Blue Birman Female - 1 month)	Tiya Sunny Queen *ES (Blue Birman Female - 2 months)

Tiya Sunny Queen *ES (Blue Birman Female - 5 months)

Other colours are the chocolate and lilac, that are the brownish colours of the seal and blue, respectively. The chocolate is similar to the seal one, but much lighter, with warm brown shades in the points, and the full colour is developed very slowly. The rest of the body gets dark not too much, so it remains in pale beige. In the picture we see a chocolate birman female six months old that only has the nose and ears dark, but the rest of points are still pale, and some months later the same female begins to develop her mask. The same thing happens with the lilac colour, which also takes a long time to develop. The lilac kittens are almost white and when they are adults the points have a pale pink-grey colour. We can see this in the pictures of a lilac birman female of four weeks of age and a lilac birman male of two years. In these birman the colour of the body must be almost white.

DK Silky Sox Rosa (Chocolate Birman Female - 7 months)	DK Silky Sox Rosa (Chocolate Birman Female - 1 year)
Gaia Sunny Queen *ES (Lilac Birman Female - 4 weeks)	Gaia Sunny Queen *ES (Lilac Birman Female - 3 months)
Hero-Diamo von Imporio A (Lilac Birman Male - 1 year & a half)	Hero-Diamo von Imporio A (Lilac Birman Male - 2 years)

On the other hand, we have the reddish colours, the red and cream one. The red colour is like a dark orange and the cream like a pale orange. In this colours the birman eyes' colour stands out, but both are colour that take a long time to develop. The kittens are practically white during a long time. In the picture we see a two months old kitten almost white and then with four and five months of age, where the colour begins to appear, although the rest of the body is very pale.

Paul McCartney Sunny Queen *ES (Cream Birman Male - 2 months)

Paul McCartney Sunny Queen *ES (Cream Birman Male - 4 months)	Paul McCartney Sunny Queen *ES (Cream Birman Male - 5 months)

Last, we must explain the tortie colours that are birmans with two mixed colour in the points, this special colour is only possible in females. Thus, we have, for instance, seal torties whose coloration mixes both seal and red, blue torties (also called blue-crème) mixes blue and cream, chocolate torties mixes chocolate and red, and lilac torties (or lilac-crème) that mixes lilac and crème. The distribution of the mixed colour is totally random, so we can have for instance, a blue tortie birman with more blue than cream or a lilac tortie birman with more cream than lilac, as we see in the pictures.

Nefertiti Sunny Queen *ES (Blue Tortie Birman Female - 1 month)	Nefertiti Sunny Queen *ES (Blue Tortie Birman Fem - 2 months & a half)
Xaylianne van Cheops (Lilac Tortie Birman Female - 5 months)	Xaylianne van Cheops (Lilac Tortie Birman Female - 2 years)

All these colours can be also find in tabby, i.e. with dark strips in the points, showing horizontal strips in the legs and tail and a special draw in the mask. We can see like a capital M in the forehead, a white shade around the eyes and a pink leather coloured nose. Birmans may also be seal tabby or blue tabby . In the pictures are shown a blue tabby birman female of one month an a half of age, and two adult blue tabby birmans. In the latter ones, we can observe the difference with respect to the colour intensity. In such a way, one of them is lighter than the other one, although both are blue tabby.

Señorita d'Avignon Sunny Queen *ES (Blue Tabby Birman Female - 1 month & a half)

Belga de la Brunerie (Blue Tabby Birman Female - 3 years)	Lazarillo del Alendergole-E (Blue Tabby Birman Male - 3 years)

There exist also chocolate tabby and lilac tabby (like the kitten in the picture), and red tabby and cream tabby . Seeing the differences between tabby or solid, in these latter ones, is usually very difficult, since the red and cream solid also show some strips.

Dra. Grey Sunny Queen *ES (Lilac Tabby Birman Female - 2 months & a half)

Finally, all the torties can be also tabby, so we can have seal tabby torties , blue tabby torties , chocolate tabby torties and lilac tabby torties .