White Fur & Blue Eyes

[t h e h a u n t]

a good majority of white cats are deaf. if a white cat has only one blue eye, the ear closest to their blue eye will be the ear with hearing difficulties. white cats whose eyes aren't blue, like orange or green, do not have this same problem.

do you guys remember snowkit, i think it was? who was eaten by the bird?

i didn't look throughout the entire site, but there are a handful of cats with perfect hearing along with the white fur and blue eyes. being a realistic cat site, the problem should be deal with.

i'm not saying to go and change you entire character to have hearing issues. but we should be avoiding this problem in the future.

i'm going to consider the lack of this deformity of white cats a god-mod.

for the rest of the admins, i would implore you to help me enforce this.

[SILHOUETTE]

Yes, I know about this. :3 But not ALL cats are deaf, like some cats in the Warrior Series. But yes, from now on we should try and avoid this. Not only that, but a recent survey showed almost all calico patterened cats are females, yet I see TONS of males running around the site. But get this; any male calico males will be sterile; meaning they can't breed. This has always bugged me, but I never said anything.

Here is true information:

A calico cat is not a breed of cat, it is a color pattern.

To be called "calico", three colors must be present: black, white and orange. Variations of these colors include gray, cream and ginger. A "true" calico cat has large blocks of these three colors, a "tortoise shell" or "tortie" cat has a mix of these three colors (blended/swirled together more than distinct blocks of color).

Calico cats are nearly always female, due to genetics. Coat color in cats is a sex-linked trait, a physical characteristic (coat color) related to gender. Female animals have two X chromosomes (XX); males have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome (XY). The genetic coding for displaying black or orange color is found on the X chromosome. The coding for white is a completely separate gene.

Since females have two X chromosomes, they are able to "display" two colors (orange and black, or variations thereof) and white; creating the 3-color calico mix. Since males have only one X chromosome, they can only be orange OR black. It is more complicated than simply having the color genes--it is a complex process of dominant and non-dominate genes interacting on the X chromosomes, but that is the basis for coat color in calico cats.

In rare instances, a calico cat can be a male. In this situation, the cat has two X chromosomes and one Y chromosome (XXY). Cats with this chromosomal configuration are usually sterile (not able to breed). They might have some value for their rarity, but not for breeding purposes.

askville.amazon.com/male-calico-cats-worth-money/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=26434222

A few years back I was asked three related questions on a newsgroup. This article is adapted from my answer.

- Are white cats, particularly blue eyed white cats, always deaf or is this an old wives' tale?
- Is deafness linked only to odd-eyed white cats?
- Some blue-eyed whites aren't deaf - why?

There is an established link between the white coat color, blue eyes and deafness. The tapetum lucidum is generated from the same stem cells as melanocytes (pigment cells). The blue eyes in a piebald or epistatic white cat indicates a lack of tapetum. Deafness is caused by an absence of a cell layer in the inner ear that originates from the same stem cells as well. In odd-eyed white cats, the ear on the blue-eyed side may be deaf, but the one on the orange-eyed side usually has normal hearing. Not all blue-eyed whites will be deaf since there are several different genes causing the same physical attributes (whiteness, blue-eyedness) so it all depends on the cat's genotype (its genetic make-up) not its phenotype (its physical appearance). Some people claim that 99% of blue-eyed white cats are deaf. This is inaccurate because blue-eyedness and whiteness can both be caused by different genes. It all depends on what genes the cat has inherited. These are the actual figures from scientific studies around the world. The percentages are given in ranges because results are different in different areas, partly because of the different genes found in the cat population. Where a cat is classed as deaf, the deafness may affect one or both ears.

* 95% of the general cat population is non-white cats (i.e. not pure white) and congenital deafness is extremely rare in non-white cats.
* 5% of the general cat population is white cats (i.e. pure white). 15-40% of these pure white cats have one or two blue-eyes.
* Of those white cats with one or two blue eyes, 60-80% are deaf; 20-40% have normal hearing; 30-40% had one blue eye and were deaf while 60-70% had one blue eye and normal hearing.
* Of the 5% of white cats in the overall population, 60-80% had eyes of other colors (e.g. orange, green). Of those 10- 20% were deaf and 80-90% had normal hearing.
* Deaf white cats with one or two blue eyes account for 0.25 - 1.5 of total cat population
* Total number of cats with white coat and blue eyes account for 0.75 - 2.0% of total cat population

www.messybeast.com/whitecat.htm

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Yeah, on the old site I always mentioned the calico cat thing to people making tortie males, because it really bugged me. I don't think the white cat blue eyes thing is as much of a problem because it is a mutation of the gene that is only found in some breeds - for instance, maine coons (a long-haired breed) and Norwegian Forest Cats are often bred white and are not often deaf. I think if there are like 20 white cats with blue eyes in a clan and none of them are deaf then the next kit needs to be deaf, but we can't go through the creation board and say, "oh, sorry, your character has to be deaf or we won't accept it."

However, I think we should just not allow tortoiseshell ("tortie"/"calico") males at all, because they are so, so rare.