Kitten with wirey type hair

Question
I rescued an orphan kitten about 3 weeks old.  He is now going on 5 weeks and doing great.  However I have a question regarding his hair.  I think he will be a longer haired cat although he does not have any persian features.  The strange thing is his hair is like a terrier dog's hair-sort of wirey and it tends to stick up and out.  Color wise he is a silver tabby with the bullseye design.  We love him dearly and could care less how he ends up looking, but we are curious as I have never felt a kitten's hair like this.  He is healthy, has been to the vet for a check over and had a neg. feluk test. Hopefully it is just a unique haircoat and not an underlying health problem. Thank you. Vicki

Answer
Hi Vicki. Doesn't sound like a health problem to me!  It could be he's got some sort of mutation that causes wirey hair.  The American Wirehair came about that way, and there are isolated spontaneous mutations like this here and there.  But it's also entirely possible he'll shed his kitten fur and have a perfectly normal coat.  It really is amazing how much their coats can change - texture AND color included.  I am fostering a litter right now, 4 weeks old, and two of the kittens have wonderfully silky hair.  The other's is wirey, he feels sort of spongy.  But I've seen miraculous coat changes happen so often, I'm assuming he will end up with fur that feels more like cat fur should.  Certainly, if you are concerned something's wrong, there should be no problem placing a quick call to the vet.  But I think as long as he has a good appetite and good muscle tone and healthy activity level, there's nothing to worry about.