A woman’s playful theory about her cat’s unusually colored kittens has taken the internet by storm, sparking laughter and millions of views on TikTok.
The viral video, posted in April by TikTok user @podwi3czorek, shows her picking up each kitten from a litter and displaying their dramatically different fur colors. The first two kittens have rich gray coats, similar to the Scottish Fold breed. But as the video continues, each kitten appears progressively lighter in color. One is a light gray, another is nearly white, and the final kitten is completely snow white.
“Mom’s printer ran out of ink,” the caption reads, as the kittens squeak softly in the background.
The clip quickly went viral, racking up over 29.5 million views and more than 5.9 million likes. Viewers couldn’t get enough of the humorous take and chimed in with their own stories and jokes.
“I have a pair of black cats—imagine my surprise when all the kittens were white as snow,” one user, Kaname Hagiri, wrote.
Another commenter, Diderareda, quipped: “50 shades of gray.”
Samantha Dawn added: “Mine straight up malfunctioned. She had four black kittens and one singular orange tabby.”
While the video sparked laughs, the phenomenon behind multi-colored litters is actually rooted in genetics.
Dr. Liza Cahn, a veterinarian with Embrace Pet Insurance, explained to Newsweek that a kitten’s fur color is the result of a complex mix of inherited genes. Each kitten receives one copy of each gene, called an allele, from each parent. Dominant alleles only need one copy to show a trait, while recessive ones need two.
“Genes control the production of two main pigments in melanocytes—eumelanin, which produces black and brown, and pheomelanin, which produces red and orange,” Cahn said. A base color is determined first, and then other genes can modify that color—creating lighter tones, patterns like tabby stripes, or even white patches.
Adding to the variety, a female cat can mate with multiple males during a single heat cycle. This means that a single litter may have multiple fathers, further increasing the chances of color and pattern differences.
Whether due to science or a “printer running out of ink,” the internet has clearly fallen for this colorful litter—and their creative owner.
