White Cats Deafness Blue Eyes

As you may expect hereditary deafness in white cats is a real issue and presents a major concern in white cats and even more is if one or both irises are blue in color.

White cats deafness blue eyes. The blue eyes in a piebald or epistatic white cat indicates a lack of tapetum. Eye color in white cats also relates to the potential for deafness. Unlike other white cats blue-eyed white cats have slightly different genetics.

Their eye color is mainly due to a cellular issue. White cats with blue eyes are more likely to be deaf than white cats with gold or green eyes. Deafness is associated only with the dominant white gene not the white spotting gene says feline geneticist Leslie A.

When the gene affects only one eye the cat will have odd eyes. The deafness is linked to the so-called W gene. Do all white cats with blue eyes are deaf.

Interestingly most white cats regardless of eye color exhibit a special kind of deafness. In odd-eyed white cats the ear on the blue-eyed side may be deaf but the one. 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 statistics indicate that. However the prevalence of white cats does vary in different geographies. 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.

40 percent of white cats with one blue eye were deaf. Deafness in white cats with blue eyes is a form of congenital deafness medically known as unilateral or bilateral congenital sensorineural deafness. Some of the cats were deaf in only one ear - interestingly if a cat had a blue eye on the right side of her head.