A cat’s whiskers are a lot like human hair–they grow in cycles. The individual whisker hairs can be anywhere from one to three years old, and they range in color from black to white. When a cat cleans its face with its paws, the movement of the fur against the skin causes these whiskers to break off near the root, giving them a ragged appearance. This is normal for cats because their facial features allow them better depth perception than humans have. Broken whiskers will grow within three months so you don’t have to worry about this issue.
Cats have a number of different body parts that are geared toward various functions. One of the most interesting is their whiskers, which can be used to detect changes in air currents and even help them hunt prey. A cat’s whiskers are a lot like human hair–they grow in cycles.
The long, thick hairs that curve so beautifully from a cat’s muzzle and over the eyes are more like antennae or “feelers” than ornaments. They aid the cat’s navigation.
The individual whisker hairs can be anywhere from one to three years old, and they range in color from black to white. When a cat cleans its face with its paws, the movement of the fur against the skin causes these whiskers to break off near the root, giving them a ragged appearance. Broken cat whiskers can disturb your cat’s life in many factors.
In this blog post, we will discuss how cat owners can help prevent their pets from breaking off their precious whiskers by learning about what causes it and what they can do if they think it has happened.
What Are Whiskers on Cats?
kitten’s Whiskers, sometimes known as ‘vibrissa,’ are an essential part of the anatomy of many mammalian creatures. On each side of the face, each cat has a dozen whiskers, which are in four rows four and add up to 24.
Mother Cats have whiskers at the corners of their lips, nose, chin, brows, and the back of their front legs, in addition to the more obvious pair on their cheeks.
While they may appear to be little, each whisker is made up of microscopic touch sensors known as mechanoreceptors. These are in charge of handling mechanical pressure information. These receptors are found along with their fur and whiskers, boosting their sensitivity to their surroundings.
Blood vessels and nerve endings are found in whisker roots. This permits information to be taken up by the whiskers and sent directly to the brain, resulting in cats’ lightning-fast responses.
What Causes My Cat’s Whiskers to Break Off?
Mother Cat whiskers (vibrissa) may appear little, yet they serve various purposes. Finding broken cat whiskers might be a concerning indicator for cat owners, but broken whiskers aren’t normally a cause for concern. Cats’ whiskers generally fall off as a result of natural shedding or harsh play.
Cats shed old whiskers so the new whiskers grow in to replace them. If a mama cat suddenly loses more whiskers than normal, it may be a sensitive problem that needs to treat. This normal breaking causes little physical discomfort, and their whiskers will regrow.
How Long Do Kitten’s Whiskers Take To Grow Back?
If your young cat has lost all of its whiskers, it will normally take him two to three months to restore his previous whiskery splendor. Be patient and ensure that your cat is receiving appropriate nutrients.
However, if a cat’s whiskers begin to drop significantly more than normal, it might be caused by a medical issue such as stress, injury, or infection. Whiskers provide a variety of functions. These applications are mostly related to how cats calculate distance and space. Cat whiskers, on the other hand, can give owners information about their cats’ health and feelings.
What Is the Composition of Cats Whiskers?
Mother cat whiskers are formed of keratin, the same protein found in our hair, nails, feathers, horns, and claws. The hair and nails of cats are comprised of keratin. As a result, when cats’ whiskers break, they do not cause discomfort. Because the hair shaft has no pain receptors, breaking whiskers generates no physical discomfort.
In contrast to hair, cats’ whiskers feature touch receptors as well as roots that contain blood vessels and nerve receptors.
Tactile Sensation
Whiskers, due to their sensitivity, may convey a lot of tactile information to cats. Mother Cats can perform the following:
Sense Surroundings
The primary purpose of whiskers is to assist cats to detect their environment. Consider the last time you stretched your hand in the dark. This is how cats move across the world using their whiskers. Cats, like your extended hand, utilize their whiskers to avoid bumping against items and to feel out objects in order to go where they need to go.
Whiskers, on the other hand, since things rather than catch air currents. Yes, people ruminating in the dark may be in a bit of an uproar. Cats, on the other hand, may remain hidden by sensing air rather than things.
Cats’ capacity to detect air currents explains why they react to things that people cannot see. Similarly, blind cats appear to be able to navigate around with little trouble. They have whiskers to rely on, as well as additional sense organs such as hearing and smell.
Check Size And Dimensions
One of the most common myths about cats’ whiskers is that they use them to measure the size of an entrance to determine whether they can go through it. This line of thought is frequently backed by the fact that cat whiskers are the same breadth as the cat’s body.
However, the validity of this data is being disputed. The length of a cat’s whiskers does not fluctuate with age or body size, according to the New Zealand Veterinary Association. In other words, regardless matter whether a cat’s breadth rises or decreases, its whiskers remain the same length.
Maintaining Balance
You could suppose that cats use their whiskers to balance because of the positioning of their touch receptors. This, however, is not the case. The capacity of cats to balance is caused by a structure in their inner ear. A lack of whiskers may throw off the equilibrium.
This is not due to the fact that whiskers are used for balance, but rather because they are unsettling to cats.
Because whiskers are such a vital sensory organ, losing one may be similar to losing a leg. While you don’t utilize your limbs to balance yourself, their absence might be unsettling and lead you to lose equilibrium.
What is Whisker Fatigue?
Whisker stress occurs when they are overstimulated. This occurs in cats who are fed in small dishes or bowls with high edges. The hairs may brush against the dish or bowl while eating. This is because the whiskers are so delicate that brushing them repeatedly might induce tension. In cats, this might result in inappetence.
To resolve this issue, make sure that your cat’s food bowl does not rub against its whiskers. There are meal bowls on the market that are meant to prevent whisker fatigue. There is, however, a lack of scientific unanimity.
What veterinarians can agree on is that a lack of appetite is frequently symptomatic of a health problem. However, if your cat’s hunger problems disappear with a new food dish, you probably don’t need to worry.
What Causes Cat Whiskers to Break?
While clipping whiskers is harmful to cats and should be avoided, hairs will naturally fall out on their own. Most of the time, there is no need to be concerned about damaged or shed whiskers. Broken whiskers, on the other hand, might be a source of concern in some scenarios.
Rough Play
Rough play is a reason cat breaks their whiskers. This is more frequent in kitten whiskers that are young and energetic. Broken whiskers are more common in active cats than in cats who spend most of their time napping. Younger cats, particularly those under 11 weeks old, may have more missing whiskers. They bear more broken whiskers due to rough play.
Kittens are most likely to shed their initial whiskers at this age. Furthermore, young cats will play rougher and explore their environment more frequently, resulting in more damaged whiskers. As long as your cat isn’t displaying any signs of illness, such as a lack of food, sluggishness, aggression, or avoidance, he or she is totally fine.
Natural Shedding
You could notice your cat shedding fur and whiskers. As previously established, cats’ whiskers are formed of the same material as their hair. Natural shedding is a typical cause of whisker loss in sedentary cats.
Shedding is a common reason for whisker loss. Unless your cat suddenly sheds more whiskers than normal, this is no reason for alarm.
Injury And Trauma
Trauma to the region where the whiskers are situated might cause an abrupt loss of whiskers. A hit to the face, for example, might cause the whiskers on that cheek to fall out since the hair follicles in that area have been injured. Cats have the capacity to recover themselves after being injured. After the damage has healed, the whiskers should regenerate.
Stress
Stress is one of the most prevalent causes of atypical whisker breaking in cats, and it can result in winhisker loss in a short period of time. Because your cat gets disoriented and loses its touch sense when its whiskers fall off, it may experience additional stress.
Stress is frequently only a symptom of a larger issue. Other factors, such as a bad diet or illness, also contribute to it. Stress, on the other hand, can be caused by factors other than your cat’s health, such as a noisy environment, a new addition to the home, or the loss of someone in the household.
Infections
A typical cause is skin inflammation. Ringworm, a form of fungal infection, is one of the most prevalent skin illnesses. A fungal infection may cause hair loss in infected areas.
Can You Trim the Whiskers of a Mama Cat?
As cats break their whiskers all the time, is it OK to cut a cat’s whiskers? The whiskers are not unpleasant when damaged or trimmed because they lack pain receptors. However, this does not mean that trimming whiskers has no negative consequences.
Conclusion
Cats have whiskers on their faces. They use these to feel around in the dark and as a warning system for when they are near objects or people, but also not surprisingly it is now believed that cats use them to gauge whether something is too high or low for them to jump up onto.
It’s been found that sometimes cats’ whiskers will break off due to genetics. They grow back at a rate of about one inch per month so you never have to worry about your pet going without their signature look.
But there are some other reasons cats lose their whiskers, why this can happen; such as if your pet has an injury of any kind (even small ones) which could lead the nerves in the affected area causing heightened sensation leading to more aggressive behavior like brushing against things, grooming themselves excessively, etc., allergies affecting sensitive areas close by where you would usually find whiskers, illnesses.