Are all white cats deaf? White cats with blue eyes are less susceptible to inherited or acquired blindness than other cats. Your friends may be conflating blindness with deafness; in this case, the circumstances are very distinct. Hereditary deafness is a significant risk in white cats, especially if one or both irises are blue. This makes people ask – are white cats with blue eyes permanently deaf? Are white cats with blue eyes deaf?
Researchers discovered that just 17 to 22% of white cats with eyes other than blue are born deaf. If your feline has one blue eye, the probability jumps to 40 percent, but 65 to 85 percent of all-white cats with both eyes blue is deaf. Some of these cats have only one deaf ear. Intriguingly, the deaf ear of a white cat with one blue eye will always be on the same side of the head as the blue eye.
Cats with one deaf ear may look normal to their human friends, and their condition may never be discovered. However, even cats who are completely deaf from birth may make excellent friends if a few measures are observed.
Avoid placing children in circumstances where their safety depends on their capacity to detect aural clues. For example, please do not allow them to go outside, where they might be killed or harmed by dangers they cannot hear, such as stray dogs and rushing vehicles. Unfortunately, there is no cure for inherited deafness.
Why Are Some White Cats with Blue Eyes Deaf?
When we think about cats with impairments, we see felines with apparent, visible defects. For example, we may imagine a cat with three legs, one eye missing, or possibly paralyzed. However, we may ignore the invisible difficulties that a cat may be experiencing. One of these concealed difficulties is deafness. Deaf cats are identical to hearing cats in every other respect. Therefore, when we find that a cat is deaf, or if we are considering adopting a deaf cat, we must sift through the misconceptions to understand how to live with a deaf feline friend most effectively.
Cats can have hearing loss as they age, much like many humans. This is often a slow process, so it may be tough to see. As a result, the eardrums grow less flexible, and sound transmission becomes less efficient. Typically, these cats will exhibit mild changes in behavior, such as refusing to come when called or ignoring our arrival at home.
Some cats are born deaf due to a genetic abnormality known as congenital deafness. Most occurrences of congenital deafness are pigment-related, and most affected cats have an all-white or principally white coat. However, the irises of these cats’ eyes are colored and may also have pigmentation in their skin or a portion of their fur. Therefore, they are people with albinism, characterized by a complete lack of pigment. Therefore, it is a fallacy that all white cats are deaf or that white cats with blue eyes, green eyes, or both are invariably deaf.
How Can You Tell If a White Cat Is Deaf?
In general, it is more difficult to determine whether a cat is deaf than to determine whether a dog is deaf, especially if there is a hearing cat in the home. A deaf cat may often look to a hearing cat for visual information about what is happening. The deaf cat will play with its hearing friend, chasing each other around the home as expected.
It may be simpler to detect deafness when just one cat is in the household. For example, the feline may sleep soundly. You may also see that she is more easily startled. Or she could not notice your entrance into the room. To establish whether your cat is deaf, shake your keys or clap your hands while she looks away from you. If there is no response, there is a strong possibility that your cat is deaf. Generally, deafness in cats is not associated with any health issues.
How Rare Is a White Cat with Blue Eyes?
Non-white cats make up 95 percent of the total cat population, and congenital deafness is unusual in non-white cats.
5% of the total cat population consists of white cats (i.e., pure white). 15% to 40% of these white cats have one or two blue eyes. 60-80 percent of white cats with one or two blue eyes are deaf; 20-40 percent have an average hearing; 30-40 percent of white cats with one blue eye are deaf, whereas 60-70 percent of white cats with one blue eye have normal hearing.
Sixty to eighty percent of the 5% of white cats in the total population had other-colored eyes (e.g., orange, green). Ten to twenty percent were deaf, whereas eighty to ninety percent had an adequate hearing. White cats with one or two blue eyes and deafness constitute 0.25 to 1.5 percent of the cat population. White cats with blue eyes account for between 0.75 and 2.0 percent of the entire cat population.
Are White Cats with Blue Eyes Blind?
The increased prevalence of deafness in white-furred cats with blue eyes is attributable to a gene linked to the inheritance of deafness in cats. Nothing is more arresting than seeing a snow-white cat with ice-blue eyes. However, it may be surprising to hear that most white-coated blue-eyed cats are deaf.
But why has deafness grown so frequent among cats with white coats? It turns out that genes acquired from the parent cats have a significant role in the inheritance of deafness. Let’s further explore gorgeous felines to comprehend better why white cats with blue eyes have a higher risk of innate deafness.
Geneticists and cat breeders have been intrigued by the relationship between deafness and cats with white hair and blue eyes. Scientists have established that the snow-white coat color is caused by a dominant gene, W (for White). Additionally, this gene is associated with blue eyes and deafness.
If a cat possesses the W gene, it will have a white coat. However, if the cat possesses the W gene, both deafness and blue eyes may occur with equal frequency. The gene is connected to eye color and innate deafness since both features have an identical likelihood of occurrence. Although most cats with white fur and blue eyes are deaf, not all are. Scientists believe environmental conditions and other recessive genes may contribute to the deafness-causing W gene in cats.
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