When Do Kittens Lose Blue Eyes?
Seven Weeks –
At seven weeks, kittens will have all of their baby teeth. Most seven week old kittens will be fully weaned onto wet food. At this age, the adult eye color will begin to emerge. Kittens’ eyes will change from baby blue to the eye color they will keep permanently. Kittens with grey, green, or yellow eyes are likely 7 weeks or older. Average seven week old kitten weight: 750-850 grams Seven week old kitten care schedule: Kittens should receive ample wet food if weaned. Provide access to water and food at all times.
Do kittens get lighter or darker?
SOLID COLOR – WHITE – Some kittens are born with a smudge of black or blue hairs on top of the head. The spot disappears as the adult coat start to grow in around 9 months. BLACK – Kittens are born black, but often develop rusty or coppery coats, white or silver hairs, or a lighter ruff and/or undercoat until full adult coat appears at 12-18 months.
- BLUE – May have tabby markings when a kitten, but usually those disappear as the adult coat develops.
- RED – Kittens are usually born with tabby markings which may or may not disappear with the adult coat.
- There is actually no such thing as a pure red cat.
- All red cats are red tabby with tabby markings either very obvious (tabby) or very faint (red).
CREAM – Kittens are often born with faint tabby markings which usually disappear with the adult coat at about 9 months. SOLID COLOR OR SMOKE? – A young non-smoke cat has a kitten coat that is often a lot lighter than the base color of the cat. The cat can look like a smoke, but because neither parent cat has a white undercoat, the kitten cannot be a smoke.
How long do cats have blue eyes?
Blue eyes in cats are generally caused by a lack of pigment, and all kittens are born with blue eyes because cats don’t develop eye pigmentation until they’re around six weeks old, when the production of melanin kicks in.
Do kittens grow out of blue eyes?
Beautiful Blue Eyes – Most kittens, when their eyes open at about 2 weeks old, have light blue eyes, and Johnson said that over the next month or two the eye color changes to the color it will be throughout her adult life. Most adult cats’ eyes are somewhere on the color continuum from green to yellow to orange to copper.
- And some breeds, like Siamese or Tonkinese, have blue eyes.
- You might also hear blue-green, hazel, gold and amber as descriptions of cats’ eye colors.
- My cats’ eyes have run the gamut, and my favorites were Jack’s beautiful blue eyes and Tripper’s intense amber eyes.
- As a kitten’s eyes change from blue to her mature eye color, you might see flecks of all the different colors.
These color flecks come from the pigment cells, also called melanocytes, in the eye’s iris and, as with humans, genetics dictate the final colors. The two layers in the iris that determine eye color are the stroma and the epithelium, and the pigmented cells are found throughout both layers.
The stroma is the outer layer and has loosely arranged pigment cells. Beneath the stroma is the epithelium, which has tightly packed pigment cells. Both contribute to the pigment, but in different amounts. A lot of pigment creates orange or gold eyes; less pigment ends up green and no pigment in both layers turns out blue.
Beyond genetics, neither coat color nor gender affect a kitten’s eye color, Johnson said. Some cat breeds, such as Siamese, will keep their blue eyes into adulthood, and it’s perfectly fine if your kitten’s eyes do not change color. “If the eyes appear shiny and healthy, and the cats can see, then it just happens that the eye color was blue,” Johnson says, adding that eyesight usually is mature around the same time as full weaning — by about 8 weeks old.
- Most cat breeds, however, experience a gradual eye color change those first three months to their final color.
- And it can take up to a year for a kitten’s eyes to finish changing and darkening to her mature eye color and hue.
- In some cases, cats end up with two differently colored eyes, such as one blue and one yellow, orange, brown or green.
This is called complete heterochromia or, more commonly, odd-eyed. While any type of cat can develop odd eyes, it mostly occurs in solid or mostly white cats, such as Turkish Angora, Turkish Van and Japanese Bobtail. “As long as there’s no discharge, the eyes are clear and the cat can see, you just have an unusual gene combination,” Johnson says.
- If you’re worried, though, it’s always good to take them in to the vet for a look.” You might have heard that blue-eyed or odd-eyed cats are prone to blindness; however, this is a misconception.
- But white cats can be more prone to hereditary deafness, and the concern increases if they also have one or both blue eyes.
And interestingly, the deafness tends to occur in the ear on the same side as the blue eye.
Do ginger kittens keep their blue eyes?
What Color Cats Have Blue Eyes – Blue eyes are most common in Siamese cats (who all have blue eyes because of their albinism), but they are much more common in white cats than cats of any other color. That’s because blue eyes aren’t the product of blue pigment in the eye, but of low densities of other pigment and the color of the eye without pigment combining to create blue.
- Blue eyes in people are the same way; it’s not that there’s blue pigment; it’s that the light is reacting to a little pigment and what’s behind it in a way that creates blue.
- Since cats with orange, gray, or black fur all have more natural pigment than white cats, they tend to have too much pigment in their eyes to have blue eyes.
There are some rare cases where a cat could develop pigment for darker fur color and still have blue eyes, but it’s not common, and not all breeds can have blue eyes. Siamese cats are the only cats that always have blue eyes. White cats from other breeds can have yellow or green eyes just from having a little extra pigment in their irises.