Standard & Colours « A.I.Bir. – Associazione Italiana Birmani

Home » Standard & Colours

Standard & Colours

FIFe Standard
The Sacred of Birman is not an easy breeding cat as the breed standard foresees a vast conformity criteria which make the selection rather difficult based to pertinence of the subjects to the here below listed standards:
	Body The birman is a medium size cat, having a slight extended body. The males must be bigger than the females.
	Head Is of strong bone structures, slightly rounded, fully cheeks slightly rounded. Half length nose with a little hollow (roman profile) but without stop, the chin must be strong.
	Ears Rather small with rounded extremities, placed slightly bended on the head, not closed to each other.
	Eyes Slight oval form, dark blue colour. Light cyan colour are considered a defect, as FIFe Assembly decided on 2007.
	Paws They are short, strong and rounded legs. Too high and slim legs are considered a defect.
	*Tail* Plumed shape, high kept, must be of medium length in order to exactly reach the level of the shoulders if stretched forward.
Coat They are of medium length over the body, mostly abundant on the neck, thighs and tail. Soft and silky to the touch. The birman has in general little under hair. Colour The sacred birman cat has in all varieties an egg shell colour body (gold-beige shade). The birman is a colour point cat whose particularities are bounded to the presence of the so called Himalayan gene. A thermo sensible enzyme marks the darker coloration of the extremities respect to the body, but all four legs have to be white. The extremities (muzzle, ears, legs and tail) must be of uniform colour and be in contrast with the body colour. White spots or coloured on the chest, on the abdomen and on the genitals have to be considered as defects.
	Gloving Gloves, peculiarity of the birman, are the most difficult qualities to obtain in conformity to the standard. All leg extremities have to be white gloved, free of any colour marks and have to terminate at the fingers or however have not to go over the articulation. A bit higher gloves are allowed in the back legs. The white, shown behind the back legs, has to form a point similar to a reversed ‘V’, which has to be positioned about the middle or tree quarters of the heel. Higher points are acceptable, but without going behind the articulation. The gloving has to be uniform and possible symmetric on both front and back legs.
Penalizing defects White or dark spots on the muzzle, chest, abdomen and genitals, regimentation of the truffle, gloves climbing over the articulation on both front and back legs (named runners), lack of the ’V’ on the heel.

Colours and Variety
Colours and varieties Birman borns completely white. Only after few weeks the extremities start colouring, but only by one month of life it is possible to distinguish the real pet colour. The colour of the birman is determined by the tonalities taken by the extremities, called points. Young birmans of solid colour (not tabby) may show drawings on the patch similar to the tabby variety. These drawings are called ghost markings and start disappearing with the age. By some varieties as red and cream, the ghost-markings may even be present for all life.
Seal Point The colour varies from dark brown to black and the contrast with the coat is more evidenced. The truffle is black. The coat is egg-shell colour, which by the life progressing inclines getting dark. With the progressing of time the patch starts widening up to the ears that is considered defective by the judgement. Eyes are dark bleu
Blue Point The fur is brighter respect to the seal. The points are silver-grey. The truffle is dark-grey. Even by the blue the coat by the time starts darkening, taking tonalities varying from beige to grey. Births and inseminations do accelerate this process. Eyes are slight brighter respect to the seal, but always of a thick blue.
Chocolate Point The point is milk-chocolate, as the truffle. The fur is very bright and darkened less than in the seal or in the blue. Eyes are of a very dark blue inclining to purple.
Lilac Point Points are of a bright rose-grey and soft. The truffle is bright-grey. The contrast of the points with the gloves is light and it is difficult to identify the gloving especially in young age.
Red Point Points are orange-red and the fur is very bright. The truffle is rose. Eyes are thick blue
Cream Point Strong dilution of the red, where is very difficult to identify the gloving. Eyes are dark-blue.
Tabby point This variety must, as by the solids, show its features only on the extremities of the sacred of Birmania.The tabby drawing is present in all the above mentioned colours. The tabby, which maintain the agouti original feature of the coat, that is the pigmentation of alternated colour bands of each single hair, is identifiable through particular drawings of the point like the M in the middle of the forehead, the lines around the tail and legs, the white circle around the eyes, the white edge of the ears, and on the back of the ears is visible a bright spot reminding a thumb print. The truffle of the nose is surrounded by the point colour, but the remaining is rose.
Tortie Point The torte coloration, which genetically can only be of the female cats, is determined by the mix of the seal, blue, choc and lilac coloration with the orange gene, which determines the red and the cream. By the tortie variety are recognized the seal tortie point (seal plus red), blue tortie point (blue plus cream), chocolate tortie point (chocolate plus red) and lilac tortie point (lilac plus cream). The particularity of the tortie is that no patch is similar to the other, making unique every female of this variety. The clear predominance of a colour over the other may determine a defect by the judgement.
Torbie Point The torbie point are female tortie-tabby point and they present every tortie feature in the tabby alternative in every of the above described coloration
Text for courtesy of Chiara de Paolis