wolfman:
Are the toes in their own group to the side, or do they alternate finger/toe, finger/toe?
I have a six-toed cat. Just lost my other Poly last year.
I grew up with a steady stream of polys. We usually had one or two. And then they’d have kittens, (not breeding with each other, mind) and we’d have a new generation of polys!
I’ve seen polys with all sorts of toe configurations. 7 toes, 8 toes - you name it. One cat had 7 on one front paw, 8 on the other. Freaky.
Jack is a mutt cat that I got at the spca- so I don’t know the breed. I live in NJ, so I very well may live near Nuclear Waste.
My Polly is a patched tortose-shell. She has 7 toes on each front foot and 6 on each rear foot. They are all good toes, her feet look huge. The vet commented on the “all good toes”, saying they frequently had trouble with toes that were little more than skin and claw. She was a stray, and pregnant when we got her. She had 6 kittens. 3 with extra toes, 2 males and 1 female. The female had her extra toes like half an extra foot, or like a human hand with 2 thumbs. They were removed because she had trouble walking.
The vet removed several of the funny little skin and claw toes from each kitten and they never grew back.
All her babies have been spayed/neutered, but it would be interesting to see how the extra toes turned up in future generations.
Polydactylism is harmless (though robinh makes a good health point) and is quite common in the American Northeast. I believe it is a genetic variation which serves no real purpose but persists due to inbreeding.