It coud be an allergy to fleas rather than flea bites, which is what one of my cats has. It took a steroid injection to clear him up completely, even after the fleas were gone.
My cat gets them, it’s from chewing/scratching herself because of a flea allergy. The cats need another dose of flea meds, and they’ll need them every month for quite a while. Do the cats go out? If so, they’ll need them always. If the cats are indoor only and there are no other animals coming in and out, she might be able to stop after several months. But if there are fleas in the house, there will be flea eggs, and those can last a long time. She’ll need to keep up the meds until all the eggs have hatched, no more are laid, and the cycle is broken.
Unfortunately, the cheaper grocery store flea stuff really doesn’t work, and can actually be dangerous for the cats (cats are really sensitive to chemicals) so it really needs to be from the vet, or at least one of the better brands (I use Advantage).
There’s lots of info out there about controlling fleas and breaking the cycle, it takes some doing but it can be done.
My one cat had these because the other cat would drag him around by the back of his neck, as a show of dominance from time to time. I think he thought he was his dad. (We got the one that was dragged around as a little kitten when the other was one year old).
I was thinking the same thing: if the scabs are where a cat can’t physically reach itself, then it’s probably the other one, during play-fighting, dominance displays etc.
They get those neck area scabs from scritching with their hind legs.
I would be inclined to think it was fleas, there are other possible allergies but I would start with ensuring the fleas are gone before trying anything else.
According to my vet, another pretty common cause of scabs around the head and neck of cats is food allergies, particularly in older cats. The solution is to try some “limited ingredient” foods to try to narrow down the cause – my cat turned out to be allergic to corn; no corn, no scabs.
This is exactly what I was coming in to say. Definitely sounds like an allergy. Even if you don’t go to a limited ingredients food, at least try a Grain Free food.
