Greetings Steemians! I'm sure by now you all know i'm big into cats, so much so that I have 12 cats! Each of them having a very special place in my heart. You might remember my last catroduction was of my white snowball princess, Furby and her cat logics. If you missed that, you can check it out HERE.
One of my other cat daughters has been anxiously waiting to be introduced to everyone here, so today is her day. Introducing.. my very special scottish fold cat called Amber, she's about two years old now, and has very odd ears. With her folded ears and round very round face, doesn't she remind you of an owl?
Two years ago, there were virtually no Scottish Fold's in London, Amber actually came all the way from Latvia in a car in a journey so long that it would have seemed like a holiday to her. How lucky I was to meet her and take her home. At the time she was just 13 weeks old. The first time she glanced at me, I saw her big round eyes look deep into mine, as if she was trying to speak to me. I think it was her way of trying to communicate with me and learn about me. When I held her, I could feel her fur coat differ to other cats right away. It's very dense, and yet at the same time soft and silky smooth. Her body is very round and she has lots of bubbly bits. When you poke her, her meaty bits wobble around like Jelly, it's simply too adorable it makes my heart melt! At first, Amber was very shy when interacting with me, she would often disappear out of sight for most of the day, or hide behind other cats. As time went by, she made a complete reversal and now she's really close to me. We're like best friends now. I'm so glad to have Amber in the family, she's so smart and cute and moreover has a very good relationships with me. She really enjoys playing with her toys, and just can't stay away from anything red. Wave anything red infront of her and she goes absolutely crazy!
Scottish Folds cats stand outOrigins of the Scottish FoldThe first scottish fold cat was a white cat named Susie born in 1961 at a farm in Scotland. She had very peculiar ears that folded forwards. Strangely enough, when she had kittens, two of them also had the folded ears. A neighbour of Susie called William Ross acquired one of the kittens and decided together with a geneticist to develop the breed further. In 1966, he registered the breed with GCCF, however today, only TICA and CFA accept scottish folds as an official breed. Why their ears foldScottish folds have a dominant-gene mutation which causes their cartilage to develop differently. The mutation causes the ears to fold forward. A typical breeding fold will have 1 copy of the folding gene (Fd) making it heterozygous. When combined with a straight ear's normal gene (fd) you should have a 50% chance of having folded ears in the the litter. This year, Amber had her first litter of kittens, below you can see pictures of her babies. Two of them as expected were Folded Ears, and the other three are straight ears. When they were first born, the kitten's ears are all straight, after three or four weeks, the kittens carrying the mutated gene (Fd) will slowly develop folded ears.
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