Scottish Fold Cute Appearance

You think round faced cute little kittens, right? Well not always. Scottish folds come in many different variations in furs, sizes and colours. Even their unique characteristic, their folded ears can sometimes be straight.

A Breed of Enormous Variety

Scottish folds are one of these breeds that display extreme variety when it comes to their appearance. This variety is necessary to keep the kittens and cats healthy. How they achieve that? Simply by constantly cross-breeding folds with other breeds.

The most usual breed partners of folds are British shorthairs or longhairs and American shorthairs. As you can imagine the possible combinations are endless since the breeders are free to choose any breed to mate their fold with.

Scottish Fold Color Variations

Depending on the parent breeds, Scottish folds come in different solid coloration as well as two colored coats, including black, white, black-and-white, silver and also a characteristic calico pattern.

Black Scottish Fold

Silver Scottish Fold

White Scottish Fold

Calico Scottish Fold

Folds with blue and lilac coats also look gorgeous. Although some people may get confused with these two colors, there are distinct differences between them.

Blue Scottish Fold

Lilac Scottish Fold

To Fold or Not to Fold?

This is a question that baffles many cat experts and mostly Scottish fold breeders. The cats with folded ears have been shown to develop Osteochondrodysplasia, either minor or moderate. Should we produce folded kittens then?

The answer lies in the very nature of the breed. If not for their folded ears, this breed wouldn’t exist in the first place. We don’t have any final solution to this problem yet. Maybe breeding folds with a specific breed makes the folded gene express itself just right but no one knows yet.

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If you are thinking to buy a Scottish fold there are a few things you can do:

• Buy a Straight Eared Scottish Fold (Yes there are straight folds in existence)
• Buy a Scottish Fold that is bred with some of the classics we’ve mentioned above. Kittens produced with other breeds in smaller scale you don’t know if they are going to have less or more OCD problems.
• If you buy a Scottish fold bred with other than the classics, ask your breeder about the other half. Search the web for any mentions of that kind of crossbreeding.
• Keep in touch with your breeder about the health of your fold. This is very important, because it help us gather data, about what works best in order to avoid OCD and keep folds healthy. You don’t need to explain in detail all the habits and lifestyle of your fold. Just an overview and its current health status.

What about the Fur?

Now that we have expanded enough in the ears, genes and crossbreeds it is obvious that the fur differs very much from fold to fold. Scottish folds come in both short and longhaired versions.

Shorthair Scottish Fold

Your pick is more a matter of taste rather than something else. The pros of shorthaired folds are obviously the less shedding and the lower-maintenance grooming needs. The pros of the longhaired folds are the nice feeling and texture of the fur.

Longhair Scottish Fold

In terms of color a Scottish fold can have any color you can imagine, including the distinct colorpoint pattern of Siamese.

Some Key Characteristics

Despite all the variations Scottish folds have due to the breeding procedure, they also share some common characteristics. Let’s have a look at them.

In the round faced cats club

The face of the Scottish fold is very rounded. The folded ones probably have the most rounded faces that can be found in all cats!

A cat with round Eyes

In general Scottish folds have large, wide open, round eyes. This eye structure gives the fold an even more rounded baby face and a super sweet expression.

Size

Most Scottish folds are well padded and have a medium size body. They usually weight around 5 kg. Their legs vary from medium to small in proportion to their body.

The Tail

The tail is a very important factor to determine the folds health. Because often the deformities are recognisable through the stiffness of the tail. In general most Scottish fold tails are from medium to long. In healthy cats it should be flexible too.

The Ears

In young kittens the ears are straight no matter what. As the kittens with “the fold gene” grow older their ears start to fold forward and downward. This happens somewhere around the 3rd and 4th week.

Conclusion

Scottish folds come in hundreds of different colours and variations. Nevertheless they share some common characteristics in appearance that make them very sweet to the eye. Traits such as the roundness of the face, their medium size body and their expressive eyes.

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