White Cats Deafness Blue Eyes

As we have mentioned previously not all white cats with blue eyes are prone to deafness.

White cats deafness blue eyes. Coat color and an aspect of the cats personality or another aspect of anatomy can be linked if the gene that dictates the cats colour and a gene which affects the way the brain develops are situated close together on the same chromosome. All-white cats born with one blue eye experience congenital deafness in 40 of kittens while kittens born with two blue eyes have an 85 chance of being born deaf. Researchers found that only 17 to 22 percent of white cats with non-blue eyes are born deaf.

Their eye color is mainly due to a cellular issue. Deafness is caused by an absence of a cell layer in the inner ear that originates from the same stem cells as well. Unlike other white cats blue-eyed white cats have slightly different genetics.

Dominant epistatic white is a masking gene that overrides all other coat colours and is symbolised with the letters W D. The percentage rises to 40 percent if the cat has one blue eye while upwards of 65 to 85 percent of all-white cats with both eyes blue are deaf. Furthermore if a cat has one blue eye and one green the ear on the side of the blue eye is more likely to be deaf than the other.

These animals are well-known to be commonly affected by a congenital hereditary deaf-ness that may affect one or both ears. When the white spot gene affects both eyes the cat will have blue eyes. The primary determining factor of congenital deafness in all-white cats seems to be their eye color with blue eyes being a sign of the condition.

A cat with blue eyes in cats will not have a dark coat any more than a cat with light eyes will have a dark coat. Overall deaf cats with white coat colour and one or both blue eyes make up around about 1-15 of the total cat population. Not all of these cats are deaf see part 2 of this short article.

Deafness in blue-eyed white cats. A cat with a gene with white spots like the tuxedo cat can have blue eyes or in some cases odd eyes. The blue eyes in a piebald or epistatic white cat indicates a lack of tapetum.