Said It Here

How to tell if a kitten will be long haired

Kittens often show mixed coat signs like fluffy tails, tufts, or thinning body fur as they grow, which makes it hard to predict their adult coat length. This uncertainty leaves owners guessing whether a young cat will turn out short-haired, medium-haired, or long-haired.

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

  1. 1
    Waiting until the cat is nearing two years old to know for sure
  2. 2
    Looking for indicators like toe fluff, ear tufts, and tail fullness

In their words

Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.

r/cats2 people · September 2026

I was wondering if anyone knew if she may grow up to be long-haired??source ↗

earthworm33 · r/cats · 24 upvotes

He’s 6 months old and has sort of medium body hair and a very fluffy tail. I thought he was long haired but I’m seeing it thin out on his body now. I’m not too familiar with medium haired cats so I was curious what other people think.source ↗

libertasi · r/cats · 8 upvotes

we were just shocked to see her chest starting to get more curly and fluffy😂source ↗

earthworm33 · r/cats · 1 upvotes

we were just curious!source ↗

earthworm33 · r/cats · 1 upvotes

Where this came up

People with this problem also raised