When we rescued our cat, it was a white cat with one blue and one green eye. We were told it would most likely be deaf (don't know why they didn't run tests, easily done) and that was true.

It was the sweetest animal and very serene (no wonder, not hearing any noise) but was terrified of being outside. Anyone else have a cat like this? Anyone know the likelihood of a white cat (with different eye colors) being deaf?

I have white kitten with blue eyes she isn't deaf.

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I have a white cat with green eyes she isn't deaf either, she has got extra toes though.

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hey, kcorn! :--)

statistically, 85% of F white, blue-eyed cats are entirely deaf.
having bi-colored eyes cuts the odds, but i am not sure how much.

i do not recall what the odds are for a M cat who is both blue-eyed and
white to be deaf, sorry!
cheers,
--- terry

tery pride, APDT-Aus, apdt#1827, CVA, IPDTA, TDF

Like leashedforlife said it's very common but you do get the odd instance where a cat has bi coloured eyes and isn't deaf!

I have a white cat with green eyes and sometimes I think she's deaf but I think she just has selective hearing

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with deafness, either full or partial though, it may be well worth investing in a cat-proof garden.

My tabby boy Misha is partially deaf (scarring from a severe earmite infestation when he was a kitten in a horrible home) and I keep him purely as an indoor cat with walks on a lead, until our new pen is built (the old one didn't stand up to October storms)

All those dangers of cars, dogs, evil people... are higher if your baby can't hear them coming.

can we have a picture? sounds gorgeous!

funnily enough odd eyed cats tend to be deaf on the blue eyed side at least thats what i have found although there are always exceptions to this. i re-homed an odd eyed white cat and she was absolutely fine

This is a great article on white cats, blue eyes and deafness:

Feline Genetics: The Pigment Parade

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Good link, I would trust anything Lorraine Shelton has to say!

Sorry to burst your bubble Terry Leashedforlife, but there is no real link between the sex of deaf cats. It strikes male or females equally according to everything I've ever read. But there is a correlation between eye colour and deafness, as Lorraine explains in that article.

I currently have a litter of moggies which includes three white kittens - one male is blue-eyed and deaf. Mum is not deaf, neither were her siblings and I have enough background to know my one male is the first deaf white in that line. The father of the kittens was a high-white black & white certainly with two S genes, which does make me wonder if a combination of S and dominant white W might be a factor.

But anyway I will be taking DNA swabs of these kittens before they go, to contribute to a study being done by a geneticist in the USA.

Oddly enough (pun intended) odd-eyed cats are often deaf on the blue-eyed side, but having read up an awful lot on deaf white cats since Squid was born, I've heard of some which were totally deaf despite the odd-eyes and some which were deaf on the yellow-eyed side. There are also quite a lot of cats out there with yellow eyes and are also deaf: having blue eyes isn't always a marker.

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Until i read this thread yesyerday i did not know that white blue eyed cats were deaf,My white kitten is 14 weeks old and she has beautiful blue eyes, while she was facing the other way i made sudden noise behind her i did this several times to be sure she reacted straight away and looked around i am confident that she isn't deaf.The article on genetics was very interesting.

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