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.

Overview
People affected3 accounts across 1 forum
Workarounds found4 items attempted
Community agreement38 total upvotes

What people tried

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

Found another way around this?

Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.

  1. 1
    Waiting until the cat is nearing two years old to know for sure
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  2. 2
    Looking for indicators like toe fluff, ear tufts, and tail fullness
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  3. 3
    waiting until the cat grows older to determine coat length definitively
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  4. 4
    observing physical features like ear tufts
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Tried another approach not listed above?+ Share your workaround ↑

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/cats3 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

“I was trying to decide whether this little guy would be considered a medium or long haired cat? He is young so I'm not sure if there's a definitive way to tell yet or if that's something I'll have to determine later.”source ↗

“I wondered if the ear tufts would indicate toward long hair or if mediums can have those as well? I've always loved the longer haired cats, but this is the first one I've raised so I'm not familiar with the difference between long and medium, especially this young”source ↗

Valuable-Bluejay-395 · r/cats · 4 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