LaPerm Coat Phenomenon

With this article we are going to try to shed some light on the cycles the LaPerm coat goes through from Kitten hood and through out the life of your LaPerm.  We will keep updating this as time goes on showing you different looks as they come to us.

LaPerm kittens are born either with a curly coat which is called BC, or straight coat which is called BS, or a lack of hair that looks bald which is called BB.  On the LaPerms registration papers you will see in their name one of the above set of initials and that is what it stands for.

(BS) - Born Straight kittens usually stay that way, but there is also known cats that when the coat dropped even though straight at birth it grew back in curly.  These cats that stay straight still have the wonderful LaPerm personality and all the other trimmings that make a cat a LaPerm.

(BB) - Born Bald kittens are not as common.  (Our Moonie that we got from Linda Koehl was born bald.)  Born Bald kittens do still occur and Linda says she thinks it is a sign that the breed is on track and just how it should be. She has them come time to time even now after breeding the cats for all these years.  These little bald wonders have no coat at birth and when it does come in it is curly just like the born curly littermates. 

(BC) - Born Curly kittens end up with curly coats as adults. 

The time line of the LaPerm Coat Phenomenon varies from kitten to kitten even in the same litter.  It is part of the magic that this wonderful breed has.

Two Weeks of age is the time that the waves of curls that some were born with will straighten a bit and by four weeks become it becomes thin and sparse, or maybe even bald!  It can be a stretch of your imagination that this funny looking kitten that has a skinny neck, bat like huge ears and scrawny legs turn into the beautiful curly haired cat that we call LaPerm.

The coat will start to come in somewhere between 6 to 10 weeks.  The curls will start to show again and y they will continue to change as your cat matures.  The coat will continue to change and improve over time until maturity, which is about 2 years old.

The question is often asked about how to tell if the kitten will be shorthaired or longhaired.  It can be hard to tell if the kitten will have long or short hair unless both the parents are longhaired.  Even longhaired cats can have shorter coats for a while especially in the warmer months.  Temperatures do affect the coat on a LaPerm.

The guide is the tail and ears.  A longhaired cat develops a full plume tail with the curls going right down the tail.  A shorthaired cat has a tail that is more like a bottlebrush.  Linda Koehl also taught us that the tufts of hair at the base of the ears usually can tell you if they cat will be long haired because the length of hair shows there first before it grows on the rest of their bodies.  If the kitten has tufts showing at the base of the ears it is usually a longhaired.  Shorthaired longs do not get the long tufts there.

We have chose different LaPerms to show the different stages of the coat.  Your cat may show some of this changes and this will help you to understand the coat and see what will come after the hair change.  Not all LaPerm kittens or cats will experience some of the more extreme stages.  In fact with your cat being altered that will stop some of the changes and stablizes the coat.  But all cats do go through some coat loss and change as they grow.

 This breed of cat is very interesting and  magical.  If you have any questions please feel free to ask us.  If we don't know the answer we will help you find one.