whiskers

[tusko10]

I just noticed that one of our cats is missing whiskers on one side of her face. I know she couldn't have gotten stuck in anything. Why would the whiskers fall out? She is a healthy, loveable 8 or 9 year old stray we adopted almost 5 years ago. I am not sure of her history, but she has not had any medical problems since we got her. Any advice would be helpful.

[carrie]

Hi,
I thought my black and white little chap had the same problem at first but one side of whiskers are white and clearly visible and the other side black, shorter and almost invisible.

[4 feline house]

Do you have small kids in the house?

One day I noticed one of my cats was suddenly missing his whiskers. What could have caused this? I examined him and his whiskers at length, but could find no sign of illness. Dumbfounded, I decided I'd better call the vet in the morning and make an apppointment. Later that day, one of my other cats got in my lap, and as he gazed up at me with he sleepy eyes I noticed he looked different. It was a little hard to figure out, because he was solid black with black whiskers, but it soon became clear - all his whiskers were gone, too! What was really strange about it was all the facial whiskers were intact, it was just their nose whiskers that were gone - with only quarter inch nubs in their place. At that time I had three resident cats and three brand new foster cats. I started grabbing cats. My other cat had no whiskers, either! I panicked! Did the fosters bring some kind of strange disease into the house? I had never heard of this! I picked them up one by one - it wasn't easy because my panic had transferred to the cats, and they were all scurrying to get out of my way. But sure enough - NO WHISKERS ON THE FOSTERS! Was all their hair going to fall out? And why was it breaking off instead of falling out intact? Was this a sympton of a serious disease? WERE ALL MY CATS GOING TO DIE!?!? That's when I noticed the scissors by the foster cat's box - my then-seven year old son had wanted to see what cats would look like with no whiskers! After a severe punishment and a stern lecture on scissor safety and animal cruelty, I went in the other room and laughed until I was sore! We have since had no similar incidents and my now-teen son is one of the most caring animal lovers there is.