ESH or ELH???

Question
I have a litter of 2 week old Exotic Persian kittens(mom is ESH and Dad is Persian).  At what age are you able to tell if they are long or short hair and how are you able to tell this.

Answer
Well, short hair is dominant over long hair, so the odds are that they are all shorthair anyway. But if you know that the mother has longhairs in her pedigree and could consequently be carrying the longhair gene, you have a 25% chance that one of them will be a longhair. And I think you will be able to tell this within the next week to 10 days, but probably not right now. You would notice a difference in hair length on the tail first, and then as the longer coat comes in, on the body. Pretty soon any longhair you might have will stand out from the others and it will become obvious.

I have not bred either Persians or Exotics, but I am basing this on my experience with breeding Oriental Longhairs, when I bred a longhaired male to a variant (shorthair carrying the longhair gene) female. I got a litter of 2 longhairs and 2 shorthair variants and the longhair kids tails looked a little different at birth. By 3 weeks it was pretty obvious what was what.

So if they get to be a month old and all look the same, it is safe to conclude that they are all little shorthaired Zots, as I call Exotics.

Hope this helps

iris