The aim of colour breeding is to build up the rufous polygenes by selecting for the warmest cats generation after generation. As their name suggests there are more than one of these genes, and they appear to work somewhat additively to produce warmth of color seen in the golden and rufous colored bronzes the more rufous polygenes, the warmer the color. The warmth of a brown tabby is controlled by what are known as the "rufous polygenes". The cooler coloured bronze Maus more usually come from predominantly silver breeding programmes, whereas the hot rufous bronzes almost invariably come from generations of bronze colour breeding. These cats range from cool greyish brown all the way to hot rufous brown, and the same range of variation is seen within the bronze Maus today. ![]() The genetic color equivalents in other breeds are the ebony tabby Oriental, the tawny (not chocolate) Ocicat, the brown tabby American shorthair, the brown Bengal and the ruddy (usual in GCCF) Abyssinian. The bronze Mau is genetically a brown (or more correctly, black) tabby, designated in cat colour genetics as BB. My aim in this article is to defend this point of view, and to try to dispel some of the myths surrounding the modern bronze Maus. My own perspective, and also clearly that of the many CFA judges who ranked Rebbi so highly, is that she was indicative of the future of the bronze Maus, and a fine example of what could be achieved by careful colour breeding. Some breeders felt that her colour was incorrect because it was new, others claimed that it indicated illicit use of Bengal cats in Mau breeding programmes. She fitted the literal standard of points perfectly in being a "warm coppery brown", however she was like nothing seen before, and this led to controversy. There is no doubt that Rebbi was responsible for resetting the standard for bronze Maus (I understand that her nickname was a contraction of Rebel). ![]() The results were dramatic, and by the mid 90s Sharon Partington of Sharbees cattery was producing bronze Egyptian Maus of exceptional warm rufous colour, most notably, CFA Grand Champion, Breed Winner and National Winner Sharbees Scarlet O'Hairy of Matiki (aka Rebbi), a bronze female of exceptional Mau type and of a colour previously unseen by most Mau breeders. In fact is was not until the 1990s that some breeders began to specialize in bronze Maus and practice the bronze to bronze colour breeding advocated by Harding in the 70s. ![]() Indeed, in his 1972 CFA Yearbook article on the Egyptian Mau CFA judge Wain Harding remarked, "The bronze Mau is the rarer of the two colors and is somewhat less perfected." Harding went on to add that, "Until recently it has been impractical to do the bronze to bronze breeding that is necessary to improve the bronze color." As an Abyssinian breeder Harding was clearly aware of the colour breeding necessary to produce the warm colour already well developed in breeds such as the ruddy Abyssinian, but as yet not seen in the bronze Mau. However, until the past decade the bronze Maus took a back seat to the more popular silvers, and were generally only produced as a by-product of breeding programmes aimed at producing silvers. A bronze male Mau, Fatima Jo-jo (also known as Giorgio), was amongst the foundation cats imported into the USA by Princess Nathalie Troubetskoy in the 1950s, and as a consequence, bronze was one of the two original colours in which the breed was recognized (the other being the genetically dominant and consequently more common silver). There is nothing new about the bronze Egyptian Mau. The Bronze Egyptian Mau - past, present and future
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