Burmilla

She is a medium-sized cat who feels heavier in the arms than she looks on the sofa. The coat is short and finely tipped with colour over a pale undercoat, which is why she seems to change shade as she crosses a room. Underneath the glamour sits an even temperament that made her a quiet favourite among British families who wanted a Burmese and found the volume too high.

Important: the Burmese cat gave the Burmilla her build, her warmth and her attachment to people, whilst the Chinchilla line of the Persian cat contributed the silver undercoat and the dark pencilling round the eyes, nose and lips. Both parents also handed down a health risk apiece, which is why this article gives the two DNA tests a section each.

The breed exists because a door was left open. Miranda von Kirchberg, a baroness by marriage and by then an established British breeder working under the Astahazy prefix, had bought a silver Chinchilla Persian male named Jemari Sanquist as a pet rather than as breeding stock. He was due to be neutered. Before that appointment came round, a cleaner left a door ajar and Sanquist found his way to one of the household's Burmese queens, a lilac girl called Bambino Lilac Faberge.

On 11 September 1981 the mating produced four kittens, all female, all shorthaired, and all a smoky black shaded silver nobody in Britain had seen on a cat of Burmese type. They were registered as Astahazy Gabriella, Galatea, Gemma and Gisella. Note what that means: the founders were shaded silver females of a single colour, so the vast colour range the breed now enjoys was built afterwards, deliberately, by British breeders. The accident supplied the idea; it did not supply the breed.

The obvious name was "Silver Burmese", and it was rejected sensibly: they were not Burmese, and the label would have muddled two breeding programmes for ever. Miranda von Kirchberg and her fellow breeder Thérèse Clarke took the first syllable of Burmese and the last of Chinchilla and produced Burmilla, a coinage so neat that it travelled into every other registry unchanged.

Her home registry files her differently. As breeders carried on crossing Burmese with Chinchillas, the litters threw far more than silver shaded kittens: selfs, smokes, tabbies in four patterns, and a semi-longhaired variety from the recessive longhair gene. Rather than register half a dozen breeds, the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy grouped them. The family became the Asian Group, and the original silver cat became Asian Shaded. In 1985 the founders formed the Burmilla-Asian Association inside the GCCF, whilst the Clarkes pursued a parallel route through the Cat Association of Britain, which worked to continental FIFe standards.

British recognition is a ladder with rungs that have to be earned. Preliminary recognition came in 1990, less than a decade after the accidental litter. It allows a new variety to be registered and exhibited, but not to compete for the certificates that make champions.

The step to championship status is deliberately demanding. A new breed needs a Breed Advisory Committee approved by the Board, a breeding policy passed by the Genetics Committee, a confirmed standard of points and registration policy, enough fully appointed judges, at least fifty cats registered, and fifteen individual cats each awarded a minimum of four merit certificates by at least four different judges. The Burmilla, the Asian Smoke and the Asian Tabby got there in 1997; the Selfs followed in 2000 and the Tiffanie completed the set in 2003. You will see "1994" and "1995" quoted online, and neither matches the registry's own record.

British breeders describe the Asian Group as "Burmese in fancy pyjamas", and it is a fair summary: every variety shares the Burmese body, head and boning, and what differs is what is printed on the coat. The five are the Asian Self and Tortie, which includes the black Self better known as the Bombay; the Asian Smoke; the Asian Shaded, our Burmilla; the Asian Tabby in ticked, spotted, classic and mackerel patterns; and the semi-longhaired Tiffanie. The GCCF's breeding policy recognises 816 permutations of colour, pattern and coat length within the Asian standard, so a Burmilla is not a colour of cat but one pattern within a deliberately enormous palette, and her litter-mates may legitimately be smokes, tabbies or selfs.

The breed is accepted everywhere that matters, but each registry files her slightly differently. This is the table to photograph before you enquire about a kitten abroad or enter a show outside Britain.

Two corrections are worth making loudly. The Burmilla was not given TICA championship status in 1999; that date belongs to nothing in this breed's history. And CFA acceptance came in two stages, registration first and championship three years later, so a single CFA year quoted alone is usually wrong.

Here is a genuine trap for a British owner taking a GCCF-registered cat to the Continent, or buying one from there. Under FIFe, BML is the shorthaired Burmilla. Under WCF, BML is the longhaired Burmilla, and the shorthair you actually own is BMS. The same three letters describe two different cats depending on whose paperwork is in front of you.

It goes one layer deeper. FIFe does not recognise the semi-longhaired variety as a Burmilla at all: the Tiffanie is listed separately as a non-recognised breed, so a coat length that is championship-worthy in Britain has nowhere to compete under FIFe rules, whilst WCF gives the longhair its own entry. The GCCF uses neither convention: British pedigrees run on GEMS notation with breed numbers, so your kitten's paperwork will not say BML or BMS anywhere. A certificate carrying a three-letter code came from a different registry, which may be perfectly legitimate but is not a GCCF pedigree.

This is where a great deal of published material goes wrong, so be exact. In the continental EMS system, 11 means shaded and 12 means shell, the heavily tipped version. Plenty of breed articles print those two the other way round. A black silver shaded Burmilla is therefore BML ns 11 under FIFe, where n is black, s is silver and 11 is the pattern.

GEMS reaches the same cat by another road. The breed number for the Asian shorthair is 72 and for the Tiffanie 68; the shaded pattern is 43, corresponding to GEMS pattern code 11; colours are single letters, n for black, a for blue, b for chocolate, c for lilac; and s marks silver. So a black silver shaded Burmilla appears as 72 43ns, written in GEMS as ASH ns 11. A caramel tortie silver shaded Tiffanie, a properly baroque example from the breeding policy, is 68 43ps, or ASL ks 11.

Worth knowing: BSH is the code for the British Shorthair, not for anything in this group. A Burmilla colour written with a BSH prefix means the source has confused two breeds, and whatever else it says deserves checking.

Set the breed against the way Britain actually keeps cats now, because the fit is not automatic. Cats Protection's annual survey of the national cat population found that 58% of cat owners work more than thirty hours a week, and that pedigree cats are far more likely than moggies to be kept permanently indoors, at 46% against 32%. Put those together and you have the exact situation a Burmilla handles worst: a sociable, indoor-only cat alone in a quiet house all day.

That does not make her wrong for a working household; it makes her a cat who needs the problem solved rather than ignored. A second cat of compatible temperament is the most reliable answer. Failing that, a window perch overlooking a bird feeder, a puzzle feeder holding part of the daily ration, and somebody home at lunchtime will carry her through the week.

She is one of the better pedigree breeds for a family with children: robustly built, quick on her feet and confident enough to remove herself before a situation becomes a problem. Even so, she is entitled to somewhere a toddler cannot follow. With a resident dog she usually settles quickly, provided introductions are slow and there is vertical space to observe from. Two Burmillas are genuinely less trouble than one, because they entertain each other during the working day.

This is the most practical thing a British buyer can know, and it is not widely advertised outside breeder circles. The Asian Breed Advisory Committee decided that with effect from 1 January 2018, every Asian registered with active status must be tested for hypokalaemia, unless both parents are already known to be clear of the gene, and the result must be supplied to the GCCF office at the time of registration.

"Active status" is the registry's term for a cat that may legitimately be bred from; kittens sold as pets normally go on the non-active register, which is ordinary and responsible rather than a mark against the kitten. The committee's line on carriers is sensible rather than absolutist: a carrier need not leave a breeding programme, but must only be mated to a non-carrier. Breed-specific testing is checked automatically when a litter is registered, so if a kitten is offered as a breeding-quality Asian on the active register, the certificate exists and you may ask to see it.

Both tests are available domestically. Langford Vets, the diagnostic laboratory attached to the University of Bristol, offers polycystic kidney disease testing and Burmese hypokalaemia testing within its feline genetic panel, and the Bristol molecular diagnostic unit was involved in the research that identified the hypokalaemia mutation. Both run from a mouth swab or a blood sample.

One procedural detail catches people out. For a result to be accepted onto a negative register held by the GCCF or another authority, the sample must be taken by a veterinary surgeon who confirms the cat's identity by its microchip number. A swab taken at home by the breeder may be perfectly accurate, but it will not be accepted for registration. That is why the microchip has become the spine of the whole British system: it ties the DNA result to an animal, the registration to that result, and since 2024 the animal to a legally required database entry.

Britain has historically let its cats out, and the cat flap is close to a national institution. That tradition sits awkwardly with a silver pedigree cat. Most Burmilla breeders here ask buyers to keep the cat indoors or to provide secure outdoor access, and the reasoning is practical rather than snobbish: a friendly, confident cat who approaches strangers is the easiest of all cats to pick up and carry off.

There is also an uncomfortable legal asymmetry every British cat owner should know. Section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 requires a driver to stop and report a collision involving an animal, but the animals listed are horses, cattle, asses, mules, sheep, pigs, goats and dogs. Cats are not on the list, so there is no legal duty to report hitting one; proposals to add them have been raised in Parliament and declined, on the reasoning that the list concerns working animals rather than pets. A cat-proofed garden or a secure run gives her the smells, the grass and the sunshine without the road.

Autumn brings the one predictable ordeal in the British cat calendar. Cats Protection's survey found that 65% of cat owners say their cat has been affected by fireworks, with hiding, startling, fearful body language, attempts to escape and increased clinginess as the five commonest reactions. Bonfire Night is not a single evening any more; displays scatter across late October and early November, and again at New Year.

The preparation is simple and it works. Bring her in and lock the cat flap well before dusk, close the curtains, leave the radio on at normal volume to blur the bangs, and build a covered hiding place at height in an interior room. Do not haul her out from under the bed to comfort her. Midsummer is the opposite hazard: thinly tipped ears burn, and shade matters more for a pale cat than for a black one.

Travel out of Great Britain changed again recently, and the old habits no longer apply. Since 22 April 2026, GB residents can no longer use an EU pet passport to travel into the EU; the document you need is an animal health certificate, issued by an official veterinarian shortly before departure. It records the cat's microchip code and her rabies vaccination details, and a fresh certificate is required for each outward journey. Once issued it can be used for up to six months for onward travel within the EU and for returning to Great Britain, provided the rabies vaccination remains valid.

The sequence is the part people get wrong. The microchip must be implanted before the rabies vaccination, because the vaccination record has to be tied to an identified animal. Rabies is not part of the routine British course, since Great Britain is free of the disease in its terrestrial animals; here it is a travel vaccine. Allow weeks rather than days.

An owner who fancies the show bench has more than one door to knock on. The GCCF is the domestic registry, and the Asian Group has its own Breed Advisory Committee together with affiliated clubs such as the Asian Cat Association, the Asian Group Cat Society and the Bombay and Asian Cats Breed Club. The Asian Cat Association also maintains the register of Asians and Burmese tested for hypokalaemia, which is where the mandatory testing rule grew from.

Alongside it sits Felis Britannica, formed in 2003 as the United Kingdom member of FIFe. It is a federation of British clubs, it runs its own pedigree registry, and its awards are recognised by every other FIFe member across Europe. From 1 January 2025 it began accepting entries from non-FIFe members in all show classes, which makes it easier for the owner of a GCCF-registered cat to try a continental-style show. TICA-affiliated clubs operate in Britain too.

Numbers show where the breed stands at home. In the GCCF's registration figures the Asian Shorthair ranked twentieth of all breeds with 101 cats registered in 2025, down from 138 the year before, whilst the Asian Longhair, the Tiffanie, recorded 20 against 30. For comparison, the parent Burmese registered 805 and the British Shorthair 5,873. The Burmilla is not endangered, but she is genuinely uncommon, and a British buyer should expect a waiting list rather than a same-week kitten.

• All four founding kittens were female, shorthaired and black shaded silver, and all four carried the Astahazy prefix: Gabriella, Galatea, Gemma and Gisella.
• The name is a portmanteau of Burmese and Chinchilla, chosen in preference to "Silver Burmese" to keep two breeding programmes distinct.
• The Asian Group recognises 816 permutations of colour, pattern and coat length, one of the widest ranges of any breed the GCCF registers.
• Registrations tell their own story: 67 Asians registered in 1988, more than 700 a year by 2001, and 101 Asian Shorthairs in 2025.
• The only outcross permitted within the group is to the Burmese, with a defined four-generation route back to full Asian registration for approved outcross breeds.
• No cat breed is hypoallergenic. Claims that the Burmilla produces dramatically less Fel d 1 than other cats are unsupported, and an allergic visitor should be offered an antihistamine rather than a reassurance.