White Cats With Blue Eyes Are Usually Deaf

As for odd-eyed white cats when a white cat has one orange or green and one blue eye the ear on the blue-eyed side is likely to be deaf whereas the one on the orange- or green-eyed side is usually fine.

White cats with blue eyes are usually deaf. Unilateral and bilateral combined of 85 and 649 in cats with two blue eyes 40 and 391 in cats with one blue eye and 167 and 22 in cats with no blue eyes. The blue eyes in a piebald or epistatic white cat indicates a lack of tapetum. Some of these cats are deaf in only one ear.

Deafness is caused by an absence of a cell layer in the inner ear that originates from the same stem cells as well. Statistically white cats with blue eyes with congenital deafness make up around 1 to 15 of the total cat population. Why are white catswith blue eyes usually deaf.

So not all white cats are deaf and not all blue-eyed white cats are deaf but a great many of them are so-affected. An estimated 40 percent of white cats with blue eyes are deaf which is high. A cat with an extreme form of the white-spotting gene may have more-or-less the same coloring maybe a few blond or gray hairs but is no more likely to be deaf than any other cat.

The notion that blue-eyed white cats are deaf comes from many cats with Waardenburg syndrome being solid white with blue eyes. 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. Another thing about blue-eyed white cats is that they are photophobic.

The degeneration of the auditory apparatus near the ear cause deafness in the white cat. Cornell University cites a study that found that 17 to 22 percent of white cats with non-blue eyes were born deaf. Are solid white cats with blue eyes deaf.

The reason is the aforementioned W genotype. Many people wonder if deafness in cats with blue eyes or in white cats is an old wives tale or a fact. Albino cats are not linked to deafness.