Cross Breeds

Do Maine coon cats come in short hair?

We have two lovely cats that I adopted from a family 3 years ago. The owner said they came from the same litter, mom is black short-haired and dad is an orange tabby. In the same litter, they also had an orange brother. I've been looking up what type of cats my kitties are and one of them is clearly a Maine Coon cat, with long hair, bushy tails, I've looked up pictures and it is definitely a Maine Coon. But the other one is a short-haired tuxedo kitty! The only resemblance is his stockiness and his characteristic is definitely Maine Coon but he doesn't look anything like one! So Do Maine coon cats come in tuxedo short haired? I don't understand how they could be from the same litter because they look so distinctively different but they behave exactly the same! Thanks! Thank you for the replies. In response to the last answer, he does have the tuft on his neck and his ears and in size and shape, he looks just like a Maine Coon. Actually, a neighbor who has Maine Coon cats actually told us that was the breed...but maybe you're right...anyway, love them just the same but was just a bit confused about the breed!

Public Comments

1. I have been told that cats can have several different kinds of kittens at the same time. y guess is that the short hair one is not a Maine Coon. My son got a Maine Coon from somebody and the brother looked different....same situation as yours.
2. Maine Coons are always semi-long haired . and Maine Coons only come from the mating of 2 Maine Coons, they're pedigreed cats. There is no way your cat is a Maine Coon born to a short haired mother. There are domestic longhairs that have some similar traits to Maine Coons and people often mistakenly think they must be that breed.Sometimes they're really just basing it on things that would be common to most longhaired cats, like a bushy tail. Having long hair and a bushy tail does not make a cat a Maine Coon,. Maine Coons have a very distinctive square muzzle and tufts on the tips of their ears. Thats only a couple things. It's just possible that your cat and the pedigreed MCs could share some distant ancestors especially if your cat came from that part of the USA. Cats are not like dogs where most of them are some particular breed or a mix of a couple breeds that a knowledgeable person can usually recognize. There has been MUCH less controlled cat breeding over the years than dog breeding. The result is that the cats of specific breeds are only about 3% of cats. The vast majority of cats have just bred randomly on their own, and they have a mix of genes from the general cat population in their part of the world. (In that way they are more like a wild species than many other domesticated animals) They come in a wonderfully varied array of colors, patterns, fur lengths and sizes and shapes and they're referred to as "Domestic Shorthairs" or "Domestic Longhairs" which just means no particular breed / ancestry unknown.
3. This is complex genetics. My cat IS half Maine Coon, his mother is pedigree and his father isn't. Of her 7 kittens, 5 looked like Maine Coons and 2 didn't. Some had stronger genes from their mother and some had stronger genes from their father. One of the parents of your kitty may have some Maine Coon in their ancestry and this can show up in some kittens but not others, If BOTH parents have some Maine Coon ancestry, even though they look nothing like one themselves, they may produce kittens that look like Maine Coons (although they could never be breed registered) Some people on Answers will tell you that pedigree cats are NEVER allowed to cross-breed but that is sheer rubbish, if that were true why do cat shows have classes for 'pet cats' divided into 'part-pedigree' and 'no pedigree'?
4. Not at all. And the one brother is simply a longhair domestic that may resemble a Maine Coon. You only get a purebred Maine Coon by breeding 2 purebred Maine Coons. You have a black & white domestic shorthair.