The fold and the joint disease are one gene, so what you test for decides what you produce.
Scottish Fold
Scottish Fold mix
Scottish Fold
Scottish Fold
Scottish Fold
Scottish Fold mix
Scottish Fold mix
Scottish Fold
Almost everything written about breeding this cat treats the folded ear as the trait and the joint problems as a risk that comes with it. That is the wrong way round. Researchers traced the fold to a single change in a gene called TRPV4, which helps build cartilage throughout the body.[1] The ear folds because the cartilage in it is faulty. The same faulty cartilage is in the paws, the lower legs and the tail. It is one defect showing up in several places.
One gene, and everywhere it lands
That is why this page is not organised around a list of tests. For most breeds, screening asks whether a particular cat happens to carry something. Here the answer is already known for every folded cat in the world. The useful questions are different, and they start with what a mating can and cannot avoid.
Short answer
Not one without the variant, because the folded ear is the variant. A cat cannot have folded ears and be genetically clear. What a breeder controls is severity, and the mating that controls it best is still not the safe mating it is usually sold as.
The standard advice is to mate a folded cat to a straight-eared cat. It is genuinely worth doing, and the reason is arithmetic. Pair two folded cats and one kitten in four inherits two copies of the variant. Those kittens get the worst version of the disease and get it early. Pair a folded cat with a straight-eared one and no kitten can inherit two copies at all.
What that mating does not do is produce a folded kitten without the variant, and the study that first described the disorder makes the point sharply. Ten affected Scottish Folds were examined in Australian practice. In all nine cases where the pedigree was known, the affected cat came from a Scottish Fold mated to a cat with normal ears.[2] The mating that is meant to be the safe one had produced every one of them.
Cats Protection puts the same conclusion in one line: all Scottish Fold cats are affected by osteochondrodysplasia, and the disorder cannot be bred out of the breed.[3] You can breed for milder, and you should. You cannot breed the variant away while the ears still fold.
Short answer
That cats with two copies suffer badly is settled. How often cats with one copy develop disease that hurts them is not. Four studies have looked, they disagree, and a breeder is better served by seeing the disagreement than by being handed one number.
Most breed pages pick whichever study suits the story they are telling. The honest version is that this question is open, and each study that has tried to answer it carries a limitation worth knowing about.
Cats with one copy, four attempts to measure the damage
Read together they say something useful. The disease is real, it is caused by the fold variant, and it is not a certainty of misery for every cat with one copy. Plenty of folded cats live comfortably. Others do not, and nobody can currently predict which is which from the kitten in front of them.
For a breeder that uncertainty is the argument for screening rather than against it. If you cannot predict the outcome, the honest approach is to remove the matings that reliably produce the worst of it. Then watch closely for early signs in the cats you keep.
Short answer
The safe mating depends on knowing which cat is straight-eared. New work from 2026 found that about one carrier in eight started folded as a kitten and had straight ears as an adult. By eye that cat looks like the safe partner, and it is not.
Researchers working with a Japanese pet insurer had something rare: photographs of the same cats as kittens and again as adults, plus DNA from each one. They followed 114 Scottish Folds through that record. Seven of them had folded ears as kittens and straight ears as adults, and genotyping showed all seven carried one copy of the fold variant.[7]
114 cats, ear shape checked against DNA
The risk this creates is specific. A breeder who takes a cryptic fold for a straight-eared cat and pairs it with a folded cat has quietly set up the one mating everybody agrees should never happen. Both parents carry a copy, so one kitten in four can inherit two, which is the severe form. The paper spells that out as the reason its finding matters.[7]
Two honest caveats belong with it. Studies of Western cats have found every carrier to have folded ears, so this may be specific to that Japanese population or to when the cats were assessed. And seven cats is a small group, which the authors say themselves while calling for independent confirmation.[7] The conclusion holds regardless of how the number settles, because it does not depend on the size of the effect. Ear shape is a guess. A test is not.
Short answer
It counts copies. A cheek swab comes back saying the cat has no copies of the fold variant, one copy, or two. That count is the only thing that separates a mating that can produce severely affected kittens from one that cannot.
The test looks for the exact change Gandolfi and colleagues identified, written as TRPV4 c.1024G>T.[8] It is a one-time test, because a cat's DNA does not change. The Cat Fanciers Association, which does recognise the breed, states on its own breed page that DNA testing is of paramount importance alongside breeding folded cats only to straight-eared ones.[9]
Reading the result
The cat does not carry the variant and cannot pass it on. Its ears stand up and its joints are not at risk from this gene.
Breeding rule: Safe to pair with a folded cat. This is the only partner that guarantees no kitten inherits two copies.
Usually a folded cat, but sometimes an adult whose ears straightened. Either way it passes the variant to about half its kittens and can develop the disorder itself.
Breeding rule: Never pair with another cat that carries a copy. Pair only with a tested cat that has none.
Testing laboratories describe cats with two copies as having more severe signs starting earlier in life.[8] These are the cats the whole mating rule exists to prevent.
Breeding rule: Do not breed. Every kitten would inherit at least one copy.
The practical instruction is short. Test both parents before the mating, not after, and ask for the certificate rather than a verbal assurance. A cat described as coming from tested lines has not been tested. Only a result for that individual cat tells you anything.
Short answer
Yes, and there is now a number for it. Among 8,610 cats tested in Japan, the share born carrying two copies of the variant fell from 14.2 percent in 2017 to 1.9 percent in 2024. The severe form is being bred out even though the trait is not.
This is the most encouraging finding in the whole literature, and it is recent. Researchers looked at cats born between 2017 and 2024 across 14 breeds. Over those eight years the proportion carrying two copies fell from 30 cats in 211 to 14 cats in 730. Meanwhile the share carrying one copy did not change significantly.[10]
Read that carefully, because it says two things at once. Breeders using the test have almost stopped producing the severely affected kittens, which is a real welfare gain and it happened fast. They have not reduced the number of cats carrying a copy, which is expected, since that copy is what makes the ears fold.
The same study found the variant outside the breed as well. It turned up in Munchkins, where 28 cats in 999 carried a copy and three carried two copies. Smaller numbers appeared in Minuets, American Curls and Norwegian Forest Cats.[10] If you cross a Scottish Fold into another breed, the variant goes with it and the next breeder may not know to look for it. That is a reason to record it in writing on every pedigree you issue.
Short answer
Split, and moving in one direction. The major veterinary and welfare bodies oppose breeding folded cats. One registry recognises the breed with rules attached, another refuses to register it at all, and since 1 January 2026 it has been illegal to keep one in the Netherlands.
You are entitled to know exactly who says what before you plan a litter, so here it is without editorialising.
Positions on record
There is one detail in the show ring worth noticing, because it comes from the registry that supports the breed. The CFA standard disqualifies a cat with a kinked tail, a shortened tail, or a tail that cannot flex because the vertebrae are abnormally thick.[9] Those are signs of the same disorder the fold gene causes. So the show ring already turns away cats carrying the visible end of it.
Short answer
Six things, and none of them are optional. Test both parents, never pair two carriers, and retire any cat showing signs before 30 months. X-ray before you breed, tell every buyer in writing, and check what the law says where you live.
People will breed this cat whether or not the welfare bodies approve. If you are going to, these are the steps that separate a breeder who is managing the problem from one who is passing it on.
Before any mating
Claims to stop making
None of this makes the objection go away. The bodies listed above would say the only reliable way to prevent this disorder is to stop breeding folded cats. That position is worth sitting with rather than arguing past. What the steps above do is remove the worst outcomes from the litters that happen anyway.
If you would rather keep the breed's body, coat and temperament without the fold gene, the straight-eared cat from these lines is a real option. The GCCF, which will not register Folds at all, points people to the British Shorthair.[11]
Not one without the variant, because the folded ear is the variant. The same TRPV4 change that bends the ear cartilage is the one that affects joint cartilage, so a cat cannot have folded ears and be genetically clear. What breeders can control is severity, and that is what screening and mating choices are for.
It is safer, not safe. Pairing a folded cat with a straight-eared cat avoids kittens with two copies, who get the worst disease earliest. It does not remove the variant. In the study that first described the disorder, all nine cats with pedigree records came from exactly that mating.
It is a disorder of bone and cartilage development caused by the fold gene. It shows up as malformed bones in the paws, lower legs and tail, narrowed joint spaces, and new bone forming around the joints. The result is degenerative joint disease that can be painful, and severity varies a great deal between cats.
They can, and the evidence on how often is genuinely mixed. The original Australian study reported that every folded cat it examined was affected to some degree. A later blinded study found folded cats scored worse than straight-eared cats but with much milder signs than earlier reports described.
Not reliably. A Japanese study of insured Scottish Folds found that 7 of 55 carriers, about 12.7 percent, started with folded ears as kittens and had straight ears as adults. The authors called these cryptic folds and concluded that a straight-eared adult does not guarantee a cat without the variant.
It tells you how many copies of the fold variant a cat carries, which is the one thing you cannot see. A result comes back as no copies, one copy or two copies. That is the difference between a mating that can produce severely affected kittens and one that cannot.
No. Mating two folded cats means every kitten has a one in four chance of inheriting two copies, and cats with two copies develop severe disease early. Testing laboratories and the breed registries agree on this point even where they disagree about everything else.
Yes, and there is now evidence for it. Across 8,610 cats tested in Japan, the share born with two copies of the variant fell from 14.2 percent in 2017 to 1.9 percent in 2024. The share carrying one copy did not significantly change over the same period.
The UK registry lists the breed as ineligible and gives the reason as known serious health problems, naming osteochondrodysplasia. It describes the likely outcome for the cat as joint pain in middle and older age, and points people towards the British Shorthair instead.
It depends entirely on where you are, and the rules are moving. The Netherlands banned keeping, breeding, buying and selling folded-ear cats from 1 January 2026, with an exemption for microchipped cats born before that date. In Victoria, Australia, affected Scottish Folds cannot be bred. Check your own jurisdiction first.
Earlier than most people expect when the disease is significant. In Australian veterinary records covering 1,131 Scottish Folds, cats clinically diagnosed with the disorder were generally under 30 months old. Cats flagged as suspected cases were much older, at a median of 93 months.
They oppose it. International Cat Care calls it unethical to keep breeding cats with a mutation known to cause significant painful disease. The RSPCA in Australia takes the same view, the British Veterinary Association says animals with health-damaging conformation should not be bred, and Cats Protection is campaigning for a ban.
Sources
Fact-checked against peer-reviewed feline genetics and radiology research. Sources also include the published positions of the GCCF, the CFA, International Cat Care, the British Veterinary Association and the RSPCA, plus the Dutch keeping ban of January 2026.
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