One of our rescue cats, George, is losing all his hair at the moment. Vet has never seen it this bad on a cat before and ring worm cultures have all come up negative. George is pretty non-plussed about the whole thing and just carrying on as usual. Any ideas? Vet has now taken skin scrapes for analysis and if they show up negative, skin biopsies are next on the list.

10 days ago:
[url=https://flic.kr/p/nzUE9d]George is going bald[/url] by brf, on Flickr

1 week ago:
[url=https://flic.kr/p/nSjLhh]George is going bald[/url] by brf, on Flickr

Today (at the vets):
[url=https://flic.kr/p/nzUTQU]George is going bald[/url] by brf, on Flickr

Aww poor little thing 🙁

Hope you all get to the bottom of it.

My mother in law’s cat kept losing chunks of fur – that stopped when their other cat went onto special food for some complaint or other & they both got fed the same. Vet put it down to an allergy but obviously didn’t look too far as the problem was gone. Good luck with yours.

Vet thinks it might be a reaction to something he’s come in contact with such as weedkiller etc. The hair does appear to be growing back a bit, so maybe it will just recover. Luckily he doesn’t seem to care and is still catching mice etc.

Skin mites?

Worms? Not ring worm btw.

Allergies?

Poor little guy!

Hope he gets fixed – all the best!

Skin mites?

Worms? Not ring worm btw.

Unlikely to be worms as the both are regularly treated etc. Apparently he’s too old for skin mites, they normally affect kittens and on the face rather than head / neck. The skin scrape should rule out skin mites for sure, we’ll know in a day or two.

If its not a skin condition, has George had a tap, our cat lost about a 3rd of his fir after a close call with a motor car.

Strange thing was it only started to fall out after a month to six weeks after the bump?

Hope he gets better soon

Do update us once you get the diagnosis. 😮

Stress? Just asked the other half and one of her old cats lost fur due to stress, was sorted with steroid injections

No bump that we know off, but you never know with cats as they are masters at hiding pain ext..

I’ve heard sudocrem is good for encouraging hair regrowth.

Vet did mention we could use sudocrem if he looked sore, might try it out on him…..

Edit – Footflaps and George a few weeks from now. 😀

I’d say allergy or contact with something.

Possibly they may have developed and allergy to your anti flea treatment (spot on?) thats happed wiht some of our cats before

I take it he is not grooming excessivly ? (we have a kitten right now who is quite thin in the fur department as her mum was grooming her constantly)

As he seems to be unaffected i’d rule out stres and there seems to be no visible sign of ringworm etc

Vet did mention that apparently some cats have an allergic reaction to flea collars that causes permanent hair loss around their neck. In George’s case it does look like it is growing back, so hopefully he will recover.

He did have a flea collar on as well as getting monthly Advocate (local fleas are immune to spot on), but the hair loss started on his head, so probably not the collar. He’s now collar less…

Latest news is skin scrapes came back negative for mites, so vet suggests we just wait and see if it recovers.

Not sure if cats get it but both of my dogs have cushing’s disease which results in hair loss (amongst other things). The loss tends to be a bit more gradual though.

That cat with a wig is a great picture! !

Update on the balding George. His receding hair line just stopped one day and didn’t progress and now slowly he’s getting his hair back. There’s one persistent bald bit on his neck which does support the hypothesis that it was an allergy to his flea collar and apparently it’s not uncommon for it to never grow back around the neck. Although we won’t know for sure for a while yet…

[url=https://flic.kr/p/nQ2yuw]A less bald George[/url] by brf, on Flickr

Looks much better. Great news.
Probably stressed. Is there a cat on his patch whose been beating him? Maybe he realised he could fight back afterall.

Well the local ‘hard’ cat, who did bully them, got run over a couple of months back, so the stress level (if any) has probably dropped rather than increased.

There you go. That explains it.

Despite a search history that might suggest otherwise, I am glad that there is a pussy who is getting its hair back.

There you go. That explains it.

George lost his hair about a month after his nemesis died. I’d say that’s quite a delayed reaction. The flea collar theory is the most likely candidate….