Videos Scottish Fold Breed Information
Country of origin -
Scotland
Breed standards -
CFA, ACFA, TICA, CCA,
ACF, GCCF, FIFe
Notes
The Scottish Fold is a breed of cat with a
natural mutation to its ears. The ear cartilage contains a fold so the ears bend
forward and down towards the front of their head.
The original Scottish Fold was a long-haired white-haired barn
cat named Susie, who was found at a farm near Coupar Angus in Perthshire, Scotland in 1961.
Susie's ears had an unusual fold in their middle, making her
resemble an owl. When Susie had kittens, two of them were born with
folded ears, and one of the siblings was acquired by William Ross,
a neighbouring farmer and cat-fancier. Ross registered the breed
with the Governing
Council of the Cat Fancy in Great
Britain and started to breed Scottish Fold kittens with the
help of geneticist Pat Turner. The
breeding program produced 76 kittens in the first three years - 42
with folded ears and 34 with straight ears. The conclusion from
this was that the ear mutation is due to a simple dominant gene. If
one parent provides the gene for straight ears, and one parent
provides the gene for folded ears, the kittens will be Folds.
The breed was not accepted for showing in Great Britain and
Europe as it was felt that they would be
extremely susceptible to ear problems such as infection, mites and
deafness, but the folds were exported to America and the breed
continued to be established there using crosses with British Shorthair and the American Shorthair.
Scottish Folds can be either long or short-haired, and they may
have any coat colour combination except for Siamese-style points.
Pointed Folds have been bred but they are not eligible for showing.
The original cats only had one fold in their ears, but due to
selective breeding they have increased the fold to a double or
triple crease that causes the ear to lie totally flat against the
head. Scottish Folds, whether with folded ears or with normal ears,
are typically good-natured and placid, and are known for sleeping
on their backs. They tend to become very attached to their human
caregivers and are by nature quite affectionate. Scottish Folds
typically have soft voices and display a complex repertoire of
meows and purrs not found in better-known breeds.
There is one medical problem that has been found to be related
to Scottish Fold breeding. If both parents have folded ears, their
kittens will be extremely likely to develop a painful degenerative
joint disease that fuses the tail, ankles and knees. This condition
also affects Scottish folds with one copy of the fold gene, to a
lesser degree, and is the reason the breed is not accepted by the
Governing Council
of the Cat Fancy and the Federation
Internationale Feline.
Copyright (c) 2008 Kitt Killion Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".
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