Southern Dolls is proud to announce that we have expanded to include the rare and stunning Mink Ragdolls to our family! Sepias can only be produced from two Mink parents making them ultra rare.  Scroll down for more information on Mink and Sepia Ragdolls.    

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Please visit our Nursery page for kitten availability!

Origination...

Mink is not a new breed of Ragdoll, not even a new pattern, but rather it is a bloodline which can be traced back to the very first Ragdolls by Ann Baker and other IRCA Ragdoll breeders.  YES, minks are purebred, SBT and TICA registered Ragdolls.  A look at early pedigrees from the Ann Baker cattery, called Raggedy Ann, you will see the names of such Ragdoll cats like Josephine (a solid white) and Buckwheat (a black Burmese type) which confirms this statement.

Most breeders choose to continue with traditional Ragdolls only and just a few are continuing with these old lines and breed with Minks.  

Genetics and Kittens...

The Burmese gene is c^b which creates a brownish coat for a genetically black cat.  The points (face mask, ears, legs, and tail) are very dark and the rest of the body is richly warm.  The mink gene isn't a separate gene but rather a combination of the pointed gene and the Burmese gene represented by (c^bc^s).

When you breed two mink cats together you'll get the following results: half of the litter will be mink colored, a quarter will be "sepia" colored (actually this is Burmese color, but they are called "sepia") and a quarter will be pointed Traditional Ragdolls.  This is possible because some kittens will receive the c^b gene from both parents which will make them a sepia color, some will get the c^s gene from both parents which will make them pointed, and some will get c^b from one parent and c^s from the other, and so they are mink colored.

Temperament...

Do Minks still have the same characteristics as the traditional variety of Ragdolls?  Most definitely!  They are a lovely, large, docile, floppy, people-friendly cat.  The Ragdoll cat or kitten does not wish to be left alone, it is a very social creature.  Other than having different markings, an SBT purebred TICA registered mink Ragdoll is exactly that, a true Ragdoll!

Physical Characteristics...

So why is this Ragdoll named "mink"?  They are called minks because the fur of this type of Ragdoll is still smoother than that of the pointed traditional Ragdoll, which is hardly possible, but they truly feel like a ladies mink stole.

Eye color between the traditional pointed variety and the Mink Ragdoll is also a distinguishing feature of each.  In the traditional Ragdoll kitten, the eye color is always blue.  The Mink Ragdoll has a gorgeous aqua (blue-green) eye coloring, resembling those pictures of the Caribbean Sea. 

Colors & Patterns...

Mink Ragdoll kittens are born with color, unlike traditional Ragdoll kittens who are born white.  The point color of the mink is much stronger, richer, and darker than that of the traditional Ragdoll.  Mink Ragdolls come in all the traditional colors of seal, blue, chocolate, lilac, flame, cream, tortie, and blue/cream.  They are also available in the traditional patterns of a Ragdoll, such as: colorpoint (having no white), mitted (white mitts on front paws and boots on back legs with white chin and bib), and bicolor (an inverted "V" on its face, white on all legs, chin and bib).  Any of these patterns and colors can also be marked with the lynx in point (tabby markings).

Like the Minks, the Sepia lines also go back to IRCA breeders.  It was Buckwheat who threw in the sepia gene.  At birth, the mink kittens are significantly darker in body color than their pointed (or traditional) littermates and the sepia kittens are even darker than their mink littermates.  The points of an adult sepia, mink, and pointed Ragdoll look quite similar, but the body color is really different.  Comparing pointed, mink, and sepia in respect to each other:

~ Pointed Ragdolls: points are dark - body coat is very light of

   color.

~ Mink Ragdolls: points are dark - body coat color is only a few

   grades lighter than their points.

~ Sepia Ragdolls: points are dark - body color is near (not quite!)

   the same as the point color.

Sepia and mink body coat color is a very 'warm' color.  Genetically, Pointed Ragdolls have two point genes (cs, cs), Sepia Ragdolls have two sepia genes (cb, cb) (also known as the Burmese genes), and Mink Ragdolls have one point gene and one sepia gene

(cb, cs).  A sepia gene is not sex-related, but to get a mink Ragdoll, at least one of the parents need to be a mink.  And, to get a Sepia Ragdoll, both of the parents have to be a mink.  A Sepia Ragdoll, when bred to a Pointed Ragdoll will produce 75% mink kittens and 25% traditional kittens. 

Sepia kittens can be seen in the same colors/patterns as the Minks.  The overlaying patterns are the same for the Sepia, Mink, and Pointed Ragdoll, being either: solid (no white, equivalent to the color point pointed-variety), mitted, and bicolor.

The eye colors are as follows:

~ Pointed: blue

~ Sepia: green/gold, but also blue(ish) eyes are possible, odd eyes

~ Mink: aqua (can vary from green/blue to blue/green)

 Reference for "Mink & Sepia Ragdolls":

www.solidragdolls.com

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