My home has been filled with tuxedo cats for the last decades because they - and black cats - are often the last to be adopted at a shelter. I have volunteered at many different shelters and people usually want to adopt more exotic looking cats - grey/long-haired/white/blue eyes/points. If it looks like a Maine Coon there will be a long line of people wanting to adopt, while the tuxies and voids sit ignored at the back.
It often happened that cats with fever coats are mistaken for an unusual, exotic, Instagram-friendly breed. Like Mittens, who is at the shelter I support nowadays. She almost broke the website and had adoption requests from all over the world.
Mittens will turn out to be a black and white tuxedo cat, and her kitten-blue eyes will turn a regular yellow-green colour. She just has a fever coat and kitten eyes.
Fever coats occur when the mother had a fever or was stressed during pregnancy. Due to this, the pigments have not been fully deposited into the fur. The extremities of a fever coat are usually darker because their temperature is cooler. As you can see from another Raise n Rescue litter below, all the kittens have fever coats. They will end up looking like their mum.
This grey fur falls out and is replaced by the natural colour as the kittens (which are usually perfectly healthy) grow. So these little grey kittens could be pitch black, little tuxedos, or perhaps tortoiseshell.
This little kitten below will end up a gorgeous black cat
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