by Thea
(Prescott, Arizona)
Hi, I love your site! I have a question. I have a Scottish Fold that has one ear up and the other folded. Is this ear pattern unusual for a Scottish Fold?
Thank you!!
Thea A. Chapin
Hi Thea… thanks for asking and sharing.
In answering your question I am going to make an assumption that could be incorrect.
If your Scottish Fold is under approximately 5 or so weeks of age then one ear folded and the other not folded would seem to be acceptable as the ear fold is not present for the first four weeks of life. At about 5 weeks or so of the peak of the ear tilts forward to become a permanent feature at 12 weeks of age (Robinson’s Genetics 4th Edition).
It would seem reasonable to suppose that the ears need not begin to fold at exactly the same time – one will catch up with the other.
However, if your cat is an adult then having checked my resources which are fairly extensive, I see nothing that supports the possibility of one ear being permanently straight while the other is folded.
So, if that is the case you have a cat that is exceptional but clearly not suitable for showing if that was ever the intention.
Hope this helps a bit. If you can make a comment to provide some more detail and upload a picture (using the same form) that would be interesting.
Here is a nice picture of a Scottish Fold kitten by a Flickr photographer (Sergey Scherbatyuck) just to illustrate the page. The kitten is “Isabel” and as expected she has two matching ears!
Best
From I have a Scottish Fold that has one ear up and the other folded to Scottish Fold
“At about 5 weeks or so of the peak of the ear tilts forward to become a permanent feature at 12 weeks of age”
That’s not true.
My first cat, Goku (female) had folded ears for her whole life.
When she was a kitten, until the age of 3 months, her ears looked like those of a 10 days old kitten, they were extremely tiny and firm, compared to the ears of kittens of the same age.
One of my current cats, Olav, had the peaks of his ears tilting forward until he was two months old, but now he has regular ears.