Do White Cats With Blue Eyes Deaf

The uphill road to solving polygenic disorders The pure white cat with luminous blue eyes is an attrac-tive image familiar to many.

Do white cats with blue eyes deaf. Black and white cats with blue eyes have a much more common type of hearing and vision problem that may be. The deafness is linked to the so-called W gene. 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.

40 percent of white cats with one blue eye were deaf. Cornell University cites a study that found that 17 to 22 percent of white cats with non-blue eyes were born deaf. 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.

About half of all white cats are deaf and those numbers increase in cats with blue eyes with deafness often found on the same side as the blue eye left blue eye deaf in left ear. Overall statistics indicate that. 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.

These animals are well-known to be commonly affected by a congenital hereditary deaf-ness that may affect one or both ears. It is common knowledge for pet enthusiasts that white cats with blue eyes are deaf and usually it is indeed the case. Thus deafness is strongly linked to the white coat colour and blue eye colour but not all white cats or white cats with blue eyes are necessarily deaf.

The variable penetrance of deafness and eye colour may be caused by interplay with other genes andor environmental factors. 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 cats genotype its genetic make-up not its phenotype its physical appearance. 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.

Dominant epistatic white is a masking gene that overrides all other coat colours and is symbolised with the letters W D. Some people claim that 99 of blue-eyed white cats are deaf. 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.