White Cats With Blue Eyes Are Usually Deaf

No this is not always the case.

White cats with blue eyes are usually deaf. As for white cats with only one blue eye about 30-40 will be deaf. Eye color in white cats also relates to the potential for deafness. Many people wonder if deafness in cats with blue eyes or in white cats is an old wives tale or a fact.

Strangely blue eye white cats tend to be deaf even more than others. Some of these cats are deaf in only one ear. The gene responsible for the deafness in white cats is dominant and symbolised by the letter W for white obviously.

White cats with blue and green eyes deaf. Albino cats are not linked to deafness. 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.

The percentage rises to 40 percent if the cat has one blue eye while upwards of 65 to 85 percent of all-white cats with both eyes blue are deaf. Furthermore if a cat has one blue eye and one green the ear on the side of the blue eye is more likely to be deaf than the other. Statistically white cats with blue eyes with congenital deafness make up around 1 to 15 of the total cat population.

The common belief is that black and white cats are unique in that they have completely different-colored eyes. First of all it can be said that not all white cats are deaf but they are more likely to be deaf since they carry the so-called gene W White of white in English especially those that have one eye of each color or blue eyes. The reason is the aforementioned W genotype.

A cat with an extreme form of the white-spotting gene may have more-or-less the same coloring maybe a few blond or gray hairs but is no more likely to be deaf than any other cat. If a white cat has 2 blue eyes it is 3-5 times more likely to be deaf than a cat with 2 non-blue eyes and a cat with 1 blue eye is about twice as likely to be deaf as a cat with 2 non-blue eyes. While this could be true to some extent it doesnt make black and white cats that much different from other cats of.