Ragdoll patterns
Colourpoint Ragdolls
The pattern with no white at all: mask, ears, legs, feet and tail in colour, and the clearest view of any point colour.
The pattern with no white at all: mask, ears, legs, feet and tail in colour, and the clearest view of any point colour.
A colourpoint Ragdoll has no white spotting gene at all. Every point, the ears, the full mask, the legs, the feet and the tail, is in the point colour, and the nose leather and paw pads match it. It is the pattern closest to the breed’s Siamese ancestry, and because nothing is hidden under white, it is the pattern that shows a colour most clearly.
Genetically it is the simplest of the three: the cat is pointed, and that is all. Mate two colourpoints together and every kitten is a colourpoint; the white of mitted and bicolour cats comes from a dominant white spotting gene the colourpoint does not carry.
TICA’s standard asks for ears, mask, legs, feet and tail in darker, well defined colour, with the chest bib and chin allowed to be somewhat lighter and soft shadings of colour on the body; GCCF asks for dense, clearly defined points and a body lighter than the point colour, with contrast between the two. The quick tell against a mitted cat is the chin: a colourpoint’s chin is coloured, a mitted’s must be white.
Every Ragdoll is born white. The breed is fixed for the Siamese form of the colour gene (TYR, the cs allele), which makes the pigment enzyme temperature sensitive: it works on the cooler parts of the body and switches off where the cat is warm, which is why colour sits on the ears, mask, legs, feet and tail and the body stays pale. The same gene is the reason every pointed Ragdoll has blue eyes.
The first colour shows on the ear tips and nose within the first week or two, the mask and tail follow, and by eight weeks the pattern is clear enough to describe a kitten honestly. The points go on deepening for two to three years, and older cats carry more colour on the body; both breed standards allow for undeveloped colour in kittens and darker bodies in older cats. Two everyday consequences: a shaved patch grows back darker, and a cat kept in a cold house will colour up more than the same cat in a warm one.
Colour is not temperament. The kitten in front of you tells you far more than the name of its colour, which is why we price every pure Ragdoll the same, whatever it turns out to be.
On a colourpoint the mask fills in from the nose outwards over the first months and can take a year to meet the ears fully; a young colourpoint often looks like it is wearing a small mask that grows.
We link to the registries’ own standards and to a university genetics laboratory rather than to other breeders, so you can check every claim above for yourself.
Seal pointDark brown points on warm cream
Blue pointSlate grey points on bluish white
Lilac pointFrosty pinkish grey points on milk white
Chocolate pointMilk chocolate points on ivory
ColourpointFull mask and points, no white
MittedWhite mittens, boots, chin and chest
BicolourWhite V on the face, white legs and belly
RagcoonRagdoll × Maine Coon, silvers and tabbiesNo premiums for colour, pattern or sex: every pure Ragdoll kitten here is £850, and our Ragcoons (Ragdoll × Maine Coon) are £600. The waiting list is the way to ask for a colour.