Seal, blue, lilac or chocolate — how to choose

Almost every family that rings us has a colour in mind. Almost none of them end up with it, and that's not a bad thing — it usually means we've had the conversation about what these cats actually look like once they're grown.

Every Ragdoll is born white

This is the part that catches people out. Ragdolls carry the same temperature-sensitive pigment gene as Siamese: colour only develops on the cooler parts of the body — ears, mask, legs and tail — and it develops slowly.

At eight weeks a kitten is a pale suggestion of what it will be. At six months you can see where it's heading. It isn't finished until somewhere between two and three years old, and a seal that looked delicate at ten weeks can end up a genuinely dark cat.

Choose the kitten whose personality suits your household, not the one whose photograph you like best. Colour is the one thing about a Ragdoll that will change; temperament is the one thing that won't.

The six colours

Seal

The original and still the most recognisable — deep brown points against a fawn body. Seals darken more than any other colour with age, and in a cool house they darken further still. If you want a cat that reads as dramatic from across the room, this is it. If you want the pale kitten in the photo to stay pale, it isn't.

Blue

A dilute of seal: soft slate grey points on a bluish-white body. Blue is far and away our most requested colour, partly because it holds its lighter look into adulthood. It photographs beautifully and it's forgiving on furniture.

Chocolate

Warm milk-chocolate points with an ivory body and pinkish nose leather. Genuinely uncommon, because both parents must carry the gene, which is why chocolates sit at the top of our price range. Often mistaken for a light seal in photos — in person the warmth is unmistakable.

Lilac

The dilute of chocolate: a pale, frosted pinkish grey. The subtlest of the six and, to our eye, the prettiest in natural light. Lilacs stay pale their whole lives, so what you see at a year old is roughly what you keep.

Red / flame

Apricot through to deep ginger, almost always with faint tabby ghost markings on the mask and legs, because the red gene doesn't fully mask the tabby pattern. Reds are sex-linked and most are male.

Cream

The dilute of red — a pale buttermilk that can be very hard to see in a young kitten. Cream is the palest of the six and often the quietest-looking cat in a litter photo.

Pattern changes everything

Colour is only half of it. The same seal kitten looks like three different cats depending on pattern.

• Colourpoint — no white anywhere. The most traditional, most "Siamese-like" look, and the most affordable.
• Mitted — colourpoint plus white boots, a white chin and a white belly stripe, often with a blaze on the nose. The compromise most families land on.
• Bicolour — an inverted white V across the face, white legs, chest and belly, colour only on the ears, the edges of the mask and the tail. The most striking and the most expensive, because high, even white is difficult to produce reliably.

If you can only decide one thing before you ring us, decide on pattern. It has a far bigger effect on how a cat looks day to day than colour does.

What we actually tell families

Three things, every time.

First, that a rarer colour is not a better cat. Price reflects how hard a combination is to produce, not health, temperament or how much the cat will love you.

Second, that dark colours show light hair on dark clothes and pale colours show the opposite — pick based on your sofa if you like, we won't judge.

Third, and most importantly: tell us about your household and let us match you. We've watched every kitten in the litter for twelve weeks. We know which one climbs the curtains, which one sleeps on the dog, and which one will be happiest with a toddler. That's the recommendation worth having.