How rare is it to have a male tortise shell kitten?

Question

I have two males

Answer 1

ive seen a few but it doesnt happen often.

Answer 2

vry rare. Da Ceiling Cat mrks dem as his chsn 1s. u r blssd 2 hve met 2 of dem hooman.

Answer 3

its pretty rare. I have a girl tortoise shell she is cute.

they are a rare breed you are a very lucky person

Answer 4

It is VERY rare to have any calico/ tortoise shell cat that is a male.  

Answer 5

It is estimated that there is one male tortie for every ten thousand births.

I once thought  that I had a male  tortie when he was a kitten.  He grew up to be a golden Mackerel tabby.  His gold looked red as a kitten. Beautiful cat but not a tortie.

I would love to see pictures of these cats.

Answer 6

Maybe as rare as one in five to ten thousand.  It is usually caused by an aberration in the s*x chromosomes.  Two XX's are required to have a female cat.  Males are usually XY.  The orange coloration is recessive on the X chromosome.  So the rare tortoisshell has an extra chromosome and is an XXY.  This aberration also can occur in humans.

Answer 7

Not that rare, at least where i live... i have a few friends who have males. i have a female though. Whats rare is a orange female tabby, i know someone who had kittens and two came out as female orange tabbys.

Answer 8

It's pretty rare.  Cats have two basic pigment genes, red and black.  They're variants of the same gene carried at the same place on the X chromosome.  Since males are XY, they normally carry only one of the two; only females, as XX, can carry both.

So a tortoiseshell male is pretty unusual.  I've only seen two in about 10 years and over 15,000 cats.  If you have two males in one litter, it suggests a somatic recombination in the mother, which is the rarer means of getting a tricolor male.  (More commonly there is an XXY male, but the chance of having two of those in one litter is vanishingly small.)

Answer 9

I've worked fora cat only vet for the last 8 yrs and cat and dog for 10 yrs before that...and NEVER saw a male tortie.

Red or cream females is not that uncommon.