i heard a phrase, tortie cats are called money makers?

Question

i have a kitten thats a tortie and is 5 months . Lately Iv'e been hearing the phrase..Money maker...supposedly torties are money makers..anyone have any answers or info for me?

Answer 1

Because cats of this color are believed to bring good luck in many cultures.
I have a tortie, too. She's the sweetest cat I've ever met.

Answer 2

It's fun to have a unique cat (I have a tri-colored, persian, polydactyl)---they are great to look at, at least :o)

From a site I found:

Every so often I am asked if a tortoiseshell or calico tomcat is valuable. You will find advertisements on the web, or in newspapers, placed by people hoping to sell a tortoiseshell tomcat for a large sum of money. One website even said that if you found a tortoiseshell tomcat, you could sell it for a fortune and retire!

Despite their rarity, tortoiseshell tomcats are not valuable in the financial sense. They have scientific value. Those that are fertile cannot pass on the tortoiseshell colour - you cannot breed more tortoiseshell males from them. As pets they are just like any other cat. As pedigree cats, there may be no colour class for them to enter so however fine they look, so they may be unable to win prizes (some breeds/shows have an "Any Other Colour" class). The abnormalities which have created a tortoiseshell male may also make him more susceptible to auto-immune disease or testicular tumours.

In short, if you have a tortoiseshell male cat, he is not going to make you rich! Even the minority of fertile tortie tomcats are not valuable in money terms because they don't breed true. So next time you see someone advertising a "rare tortie male" on Ebay, usenet or a bulletin board, you can wonder who is more gullible - the person expecting to make a fortune or the person who pays over-the-odds because they think the cat is going to make them a fortune!

Another myth about tortoiseshell male cats is that if an owner takes a tortie or calico cat to be spayed (quite reasonably believing it to be female) and it turns out to be a male which the vet then castrates, the owner is entitled to get the money back from the vet for unnecessarily neutering a cat which is already sterile. Even though a male calico is likely to be sterile, he probably still has the male hormones which make him spray. Many owners of tortoiseshell males like to mate the cat once to see if he is fertile. With so many unwanted kittens in the world, please don't do this unless you are involved in a genuine research programme.

To understand what creates tortoiseshell and calico males, we first have to look at the genes for red and for tortoiseshell. The white areas of calico cats are caused by different genes and will be ignored. The tabby pattern is also caused by other gene. In this article, "ginger" also includes "ginger-and-white" (red bicolour) and "red tabby" (with or without white). "Tortoiseshell" also includes "tortoiseshell-and-white" (calico) and "tortoiseshell tabby" (torbie) (with or without white). Cream is a dilute version of red. Blue (grey) is a dilute version of black.

Answer 3

That's ridiculous as it is a common coloration in female cats. I suspect it had an evolutionary advantage because the tortoiseshell pattern is a much better "camouflage" outdoors -- I find my tories are much more difficult to see outside than my black and white or my organge tabbies.

The tortoiseshell pattern requires two XX chromosomes so those cat are about 99 and 44/100 % female. Thus mother cats are harder to detect in the wild and can keep predators from finding their kittens.

Answer 4

I've never heard that, maybe it's an "old wives tale" like black cats are bad luck.
I have also know them to be tempermental.
Cheers.

Answer 5

That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. I have had several and found them to be tempermental, but NOT money makers!!! They can be money pits however!!!!!!!!!