Birman outcross
Strange as it may seem to those not in the 'cat fancy' this is a very contraversial subject. For those of you uninterested in the 'politics' of outcrossing in a pedigree breed I occasionally have birman variant kittens available, these are pedigreed, registered GCCF/TICA kittens and first generation kittens look much like 'old fashioned' persians, with easier care coats, eyes that do not need daily wiping and fantastic cuddly purry personalities.
Before considering the arguements below about the different opinions on outcrossing in the birman breed ( if you wish) I would like to introduce 'Bubbles' (Johnnycake Heidi) a very entertaining seal tortie pt persian and Purindoors Powderpuff her first generation outcross kitten ( posing with her best in show HHP kitten rossette). Bubbles was chosen very carefully for this program, she is unrelated to any other persian previously involved in the birman breed, and both her parents have DNA PKD negative certificates, which can be seen on request. May I take this opportunity to thank Doug and JoAnn D'Abate for letting Bubbles come to Purindoors for our outcross program.
Puff as a first generation outcross already has the birman 'roman nose' as commented on by several TICA judges and certainly won the hearts of both judges and exhibitors, due to her very laid back nature, and mighty purr. One judge ( Kurt Vlach) even emptied his bag and attempted to smuggle her out of the show hall. Puff is now with Marcia Owens of Goldlay birmans, where she will hopefully produce the next generation before resuming her place as an international all conquering Household Pet show cat. Puff has now delivered a litter of 3 chubby babies, photos will follow.
Do we need to outcross or not?
Some in the cat 'fancy' are in favour of outcrossing to reduce inbreeding, and predict dire consequences for breeds that are significantly inbred, others are equally against any outcrossing as it would'dilute' the gene pool and irriversibly change the look of a breed, in the case of birmans resulting in the loss of a 'proper' birman.
Puffis is a GCCF allowable outcross according to the Birman breed advisory council ( made up of the 4 GCCF birman cat clubs in the UK). In both GCCF and TICA a cat is eligible to be shown if it is 4 or more generations away from the outcross cat. Our stud, is a 4th generation from a persian outcross and has achieved the title of champion in both organisations.
Below are some arguments I have heard from both sides of the 'devide' of opinion on outcrossing.
Reasons not to outcross to other breeds include;
No need to, the birman has no problems
It would change the look of the breed
They are suffcient birmans in the world to provide different blood lines, just import a different line. One arguement is to use the new silver birmans ( produced from matings to silver persians) which are available elsewhere in the world although as they are not recognised by the GCCF they couldn't be shown in our main registery, and nor could non-silver birmans bred from them).
Other breeds can also have problems, you could bring in a health fault the birman doesn't have.
Skilled breeders know their lines well and can remove inferior cats from breeding programs, making sure only the healthiet genes remain. Healthy cats produce healthy cats, why 'fix something that isn't broken?'
Reasons to outcross include;
inbreeding 'depression' can occur which is scientifically proven to reference ;Griffiths, Anthony J. F.; Jeffrey H. Miller, David T. Suzuki, Richard C. Lewontin, William M. Gelbart (1999). An introduction to genetic analysis. New York: W. H. Freeman. pp. 726–727. ISBN 0-7167-3771-X Its already been done many times in the breed, all the new colours ( choc, red, tabby, silver ) were introduced via outcrosses and these cats are accepted as birmans. Even if the fantastical story of the 'sacred cat' has a grain of truth, all modern birmans are decended from a single litter, and much outcrossing to other cats (both pedgree and non-pedigree) was carried out to produce the present 'look'. The second world war resulted in less than 5 birmans existing in the world, outcrossing was necesary to re-establish the breed. All the birmans in the world are ( necessarily to be a pedigree breed!) related back to those first cats, the majority of cats in other countries are decended from cats bred in the UK and France so importing back in would not provide a sufficient outcross to reduce inbreeding depression. Some of these arguments are more or less convincing according to your point of view, and your personal experiences if you are a breeder/exhibitor or owner of our wonderful breed. I personally accept that the birman is significantly inbred. However how detrimental to the breed this is (in the light of the fact that ALL pedigreed animals are by definition members of a restricted gene pool to gain a specific breed 'look') is a matter of significant debate. My reasons for performing an outcross is to introduce a new red line to the UK birman gene pool, we have some fantastic reds here (Sunny is a prime example) but due to the small number of cats used to introduce the colour in the first place, finding a red cat that is not closely (within 4 generations) related to any other in the UK is quite a difficult propostion. Thus I'm hoping to give something back to the breed I love by providing an outcross line for my favourite colour, to make sure they are still big, healthy red birmans around for my grand and great grandchildren to enjoy. Feel free to email and sensibly discuss anything you read here. I'm very open minded to new evidence, as a trained scientist it does not matter wether evidence agrees or conflicts with my current conclusions all is valuable, and I reserve the right to change my conclusions in the light of compelling new evidence, as should all fair minded people.
