Casiphia of BirchCrest                                              Champion Sippican Mousekeeter of BirchCrest

 

     The Scottish Fold is a medium cat with a well-rounded body.  The coat is dense, and may be short or long in length.  The face has large round eyes, round whisker pads, and a short nose.  Obviously the most often noted feature of a Scottish Fold is its ears.  The ideal Scottish Fold has small tightly folded ears.  However, not all Scottish Folds have that ear set.  The gene that causes the ears to fold is incompletely dominant.  That means it is expressed to different degrees depending on how the genes match up.  Some Scottish Folds have straight ears.  Their ears resemble the ear set of a normal cat.  In others the ears flop forward in a loose fold.  The ideal Scottish Fold has tightly folded ears that give it an owl like expression.  Straight-eared Scottish Fold kittens are very important to a Scottish Fold breeding program.  A folded ear Scottish Fold should only be bred to a straight ear Scottish Fold. If two folded ear Scottish Folds are mated the chance of skeletal abnormalities is greatly increased.  Straight eared Scottish Folds possess all of the wonderful characteristics that folded ear Scottish Folds possess.  Currently, only folded ear Scottish Folds are accepted in the show ring.  Straight-ear Scottish Folds may be shown in the Household Pet division of a cat show.  The Scottish Fold comes in almost any color and pattern.  Some registries allow color point Scottish Folds and others do not.  A color point is a cat that has a cream-colored body and color restricted to the points (facial mask, ears, legs, and tail---like a Siamese cat).  The Scottish Fold has two acceptable outcrosses, the American Shorthair and the British Shorthair.  That means a Scottish Fold may have British or American Shorthairs in its pedigree and still be considered a true Scottish Fold.

     All Scottish Folds are descended from a single white, Scottish barn cat named “Susie”.  Susie had folded ears and only produced two offspring, a male and a female.  The male was neutered and kept as a pet.  The female was given to William and Mary Ross.  They developed a line of cats with folded ears by crossing Susie's folded eared daughter with a white British Shorthair.  William and Mary Ross first spotted Susie in 1961.  In 1978 the Scottish Fold was granted Championship status by the Cat Fanciers' Association.

     Our folded female Scottish Fold is a lovely little female named Fifi, Casiphia of BirchCrest.  She chose the name--not us.  Fifi was all she would answer to as a kitten, so we had to work with it.  Fifi is a longhaired silver ticked tabby.  As you can see, she has very tightly folded ears and nice round eyes.  She is the silver cat featured at the top of this page.  

      We also have a beautiful straight ear Scottish Fold female.  Her name is  JetaFold DC of BirchCrest (pictured to the right) .  She is a dilute calico.  As you can see she has all the features of a Scottish Fold, nice rounded body, large round expressive eyes.  The only difference is that she has upright ears.  While straight ears are not shown in championship classes, they are indispensable to a Scottish Fold breeding program.  As a dilute calico, she can produce all  color kittens.