Why Is My Cat Losing Fur?

Hair loss in cats has a long list of possible causes, which sounds discouraging until you know that the list halves immediately once you establish one thing: whether the cat is removing the hair itself.

That single question is where any sensible investigation starts, and you can usually answer it at home.

The first question

Look at the hair that remains in the bald area.

• Stubble, broken shafts, hair that feels bristly means the cat is barbering it off. The cause is itch, pain or stress
• Smooth, completely bare skin with no stubble means the hair is falling out at the root. The cause is more likely hormonal, fungal or nutritional

Cats groom fastidiously and privately, often at night, so owners frequently report hair falling out when the cat is pulling it. This distinction is the single most useful piece of information you can bring to a vet.

If the cat is pulling it out

Fleas

The most common cause, and often missed because a fastidious cat removes the evidence. In flea-allergic cats one bite is enough. Classic pattern is loss along the back, base of the tail and hind legs.

"There were no fleas" does not exclude it. Rigorous treatment of every animal in the house for eight to twelve weeks does.

Allergy

Environmental or food. Often symmetrical, on the belly, inner thighs and forelegs. Frequently accompanied by tiny scabs across the back, which feel like grit under the coat.

Pain

Cats groom over what hurts. Hair loss over one hip, one flank or the lower belly can mark arthritis or bladder discomfort underneath rather than a skin problem at all. This is regularly missed.

Stress

Genuine compulsive over-grooming, usually the belly and inner legs. Triggers include a new pet, a new baby, a move, building work or a change in routine. It is a diagnosis reached after ruling out the physical causes, not before.

If the hair is falling out

Ringworm

A fungal infection, not a worm. Circular patches of loss with scaly skin, often on the head, ears and legs. Common in kittens.

It transmits to people, particularly children, and spreads through the household on bedding and furniture. Diagnosis needs a culture or microscopy, and treatment takes weeks including decontaminating the environment.

Hormonal disease

Hyperthyroidism, common in older cats, causes hair loss with weight loss despite a large appetite, increased thirst, restlessness and sometimes vomiting. Diabetes and other endocrine conditions also affect coat.

These are diagnosed on bloodwork, and hyperthyroidism in particular is very treatable once found.

Nutritional

Poor quality or unbalanced diet, or a cat fed dog food long term, produces a dull, thin coat. Correcting the diet takes months to show, because the coat has to grow.

Normal shedding, for comparison

Cats shed continuously and more heavily at seasonal changes. Normal shedding thins the coat evenly and never leaves bald patches, broken stubble or visible skin. Any bald area is not normal shedding.

See a vet if

• Any bald patch, however small
• Scabs, redness, crusting or a smell
• Circular lesions, particularly with a child in the house
• Hair loss with weight loss, increased thirst or appetite change
• Loss over one specific area, which suggests pain underneath
• Anyone in the household developing a circular itchy rash

What a vet does

Skin scrapings and tape samples for mites and yeast, a fungal culture or examination for ringworm, a flea comb, and bloodwork where a hormonal cause is suspected. In an older cat with weight loss, thyroid testing is usually early on the list.

This is another condition where the diagnosis is cheap and the guessing is expensive: months of shampoos and diet changes cost more than the tests that would have identified it.

What not to do

• Do not use dog flea products. Permethrin kills cats
• Do not apply engine oil, kerosene or disinfectant. Cats groom it straight off and are poisoned
• Do not assume stress before the physical causes are excluded
• Do not shave to see better without veterinary advice

Hair loss is slow, painless-looking and easy to postpone, and the two causes that most reward early action, ringworm spreading through a household and hyperthyroidism in an older cat, both look at first like a cat that is simply moulting.

Every Skeepy Pet HMO plan includes unlimited vet consultations and covers illness treatment within the plan's limits, at any vet clinic in Nigeria, which makes the vet the first step rather than the one reached after a year of shampoos.