A RARE and unusual litter of kittens were born in the Wye Valley wearing ‘overcoats’.

The rare phenomenon was discovered after Forest of Dean Cats Protection was called in to help a woman in Llandogo who was struggling to look after the stray black cat and her brood.

Although fond of the stray cat, the Llandogo woman found she could not keep Georgie, as she named her, as she did not get on with her own cat.

But two days before a representative from Forest of Dean Cats Protection could pick up the stray cat she gave birth to a litter of six kittens in the middle of the kitchen floor.

However the kittens were born with an unusual ‘overcoat’ of white/grey fur over their true colours. Two kittens were completely covered in this fur, with little black ears sticking out while the others only had this on their hips and back legs.

The overcoat had never been seen before on litters of kittens, so Sara Ford the Forest of Dean Cats Protection co-ordinator Maggie Roberts, head vet at Cats Protection headquarters in Sussex.

Maggie and her colleagues had never seen these disappearing overcoats on kittens before but conducted some research and discovered a phenomenon called ‘fever coat’, which can develop if the mother has had a fever during pregnancy or through stress.

Sara believes this last scenario could be the answer as Georgie was a stray. Research suggested that black cats are more prone to fever coat.

Gradually, over the weeks, the overcoats on these six kittens disappeared and eventually revealed two black kittens, three tortoiseshells and one tabby. All kittens and the mother have now been re-homed and are doing well in their new families.