Hair club for cats?

July 6, 2012 3:38 PM

Why is my cat balding?

For about six weeks, my eight year old cat Chairman Meow (seen here being fierce) has been steadily losing fur on his belly, hind legs, and butt. Picture. He seems perfectly happy and healthy otherwise and his appetite is normal.

My best guess is over-grooming, since the skin underneath doesn't appear to be damaged like it would be (?) with ringworm or mites. The affected areas still have a short layer of fur, but all the long fur is gone. My other cat (who frequently sleeps on top of him) is fine, so it seems to not be contagious.

Has anyone seen something like this before? I've scheduled a vet appointment for next week, but I'd like to go in knowing what to expect.

posted by qxntpqbbbqxl to pets & animals (17 answers total)

I should add: Combing has not turned up any evidence of fleas.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 3:40 PM on July 6, 2012

Some good info here. I had a kitty cat who went trough this when we introduced another cat to the household. In her case it was stress related.
posted by Tarumba at 3:44 PM on July 6, 2012

Stress-related overgrooming would be my guess too. My neurotic Siamese does this a lot - every time I go out of town for more than a day or two I come home to bald pink kitty belly.

It could be allergies, too - switching to a wet grain-free food has reduced the non-obviously-stress overgrooming to pretty much nil. (And also the random hairballs.)
posted by restless_nomad at 3:58 PM on July 6, 2012

Here is a link to The Merk Veterinary Manual's article on alopecia (hair loss).

I work at a veterinary clinic and we have a fair amount of cats come in with the major complaint being alopecia. A complete physical exam and diagnostic tests (if your vet thinks thinks they are necessary) can usually pinpoint the cause.

Good luck to you and Chairman Meow!
posted by OsoMeaty at 4:02 PM on July 6, 2012

I've seen this a few times.

Twice it was over grooming from stress - once was a new social situation and once because of a severe ear infection. I have had good results using Rescue Remedy for social stress related issues with cats.

Another cat did this as a response to not having the litter box as clean as he liked. If there's no fur it can't get dirty!

If it were just the belly to the groin I would suspect it was a flea trap, but with the legs involved it probably isn't.
posted by cat_link at 4:03 PM on July 6, 2012

My cat has been doing this for a few years, too, and it's obviously stress-related, although we have never been able to pinpoint the cause of the stress as nothing in her life has changed. Our vet keeps an eye on it and has told us not to worry unless she's damaging the skin underneath, which she isn't.
posted by anderjen at 4:05 PM on July 6, 2012

I wouldn't be surprised if it was over-grooming. We had that with one of our cats. Tried everything to get him over it. Eventually a new vet diagnosed it as allergies. He spent the rest of his life on prednisone, which isn't a good thing, but he was already quite old.
posted by adamrice at 4:15 PM on July 6, 2012

My cat did this and looked just like your cat (exceptionally cute but a bit bald on the backside). Here's me asking hysterically what to do. No kidding, she took an anti-depressant for about a month (no real adverse side effects, but it dulled her for a while). Then, she was fine.

I'm happy to see that you are taking your cat to the vet -- I waited entirely too long, which did nothing for my cat's problem except make it worse. I'll be honest: The full run of tests and whatnot (outlined in my post's "back story") was expensive and time-consuming (and oh gosh the lime-sulfur dips were horrible for both of us), but necessary. Pulling fur out leads to infection, and it was not getting better on its own.

The vet finally thought that she'd gotten an original infection from her food or water (she's a completely indoor cat and I feed her Iams, so I don't know), but that she later developed this fur-pulling as a habit. Notice that others chimed in to say that their cats were taking antidepressants -- apparently this is not entirely uncommon. In fact, when filling her prescription at the local Walgreens (yes, really), they said they had several cats taking antidepressants. Weird but true.
posted by Houstonian at 4:35 PM on July 6, 2012

Male cattern baldness!

Okay, joking aside, it could be allergies AND over-grooming. My parent's dog was allergic to the world and she was so itchy that she would lick, scratch, bite all of her hair out. So sad.
posted by two lights above the sea at 4:36 PM on July 6, 2012

my short-haired kitty (obpic) went thru an overgrooming phase, licking off all the fur from her belly on down but leaving her paws intact so it looked like she was wearing little booties. it was stress-related, and a course of antidepressants and lots of daily mellow-time fixed things up. once the fur grew back, she was fine and went off her meds without a problem.
posted by rmd1023 at 4:51 PM on July 6, 2012

Our cat apparently (?) had a flea problem, in that she's so sensitive/allergic to them that she started pulling her hair out without us being able to find any fleas. The cone collar of shame, a week of antihistamines, and regular flea drops thereafter cleared it up.

If you get a soft cone collar (much better than the hard plastic kind), reinforce the edge with duct tape right away, before it gets torn up.
posted by anaelith at 8:24 PM on July 6, 2012

In case it's not grooming, my cat had balding on one side of her bod. It turned out she was secretly lying on the heat vent and burning off all her hair. So that is also possible.
posted by k8lin at 10:13 PM on July 6, 2012

I am wishing mites, fleas, stress or food allergies on you, because any or all of them are fairly easy to clear up. You DON'T want the autoimmune problem that we had with our old cat. Steroids took care of the balding eventually, but the cat was not fun to live with, and the disease shortened her live considerably.
posted by BlueHorse at 10:36 PM on July 6, 2012

The underlying skin doesn't always look damaged with fungal infections like ringworm. Your vet will likely put the cat under a UV lamp (skin fungus glows fluorescent green under UV light), and, if necessary, take a culture to send to the lab for analysis. There are a lot of possible causes for hair loss, ranging from benign to serious, so this is really something that your vet needs to check out. Good luck!
posted by Perodicticus potto at 1:20 AM on July 7, 2012

One of my mum's cats did this several times. It was finally diagnosed as a flea problem. I don't know what the final solution was. (He had to be euthanized last year for unrelated issues.)
posted by deborah at 4:22 PM on July 7, 2012

Do you have an update for us? Did you take Chairman Meow to the vet? What was the diagnosis?
posted by OsoMeaty at 7:12 PM on July 22, 2012

Belated update: The vet thought it was anxiety or allergies. Either way, I am happy to report that his fur has been slowly returning and now he is back to normal.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 10:10 PM on May 15