What would happen if you cut a cat’s whiskers off?
would they grow back or stay the same length
They grow back… but very slowly. It is NOT a nice thing to do.
It trips out their equilibrium.
“The belief that cats can see in the dark is not really correct. Although their night vision is considerably better than humans, it is the whiskers which allow the cat to negotiate objects in the dark. The sensitive whiskers do not have to touch an object for the cat to be aware of its presence, as they are so sensitive that they can detect changes in atmospheric pressure or the deflection of air currents around them.”-PetNet
Sidenote: Have you ever looked at a cat’s whiskers closely? They grow in a perfectly square checkerboard pattern. It’s awesome.
My vet said that this was b/s, and that domesticated cats didn’t use whiskers for anything - they were for show only. My cat had cancer, and as part of kitty chemotherapy, his whiskers fell out. Same cat, no coordination problems, etc. They didn’t grow back in the two years he lived after chemo though…
Yes. It’s a myth.
My cat, Boojum, got into a fight and suffered an abcess on his right cheek (facial cheek you pervs).
So the vet shaved the right side of his face from nose to neck in order to treat the abcess. Yes, including the whiskers.
Aside from embarrasment, the cat suffered nothing from the loss of his whiskers and fur. It took nearly a year for the whiskers to grow back.
(But man, was it a royal hassle treating that abcess. The scab had to be removed daily so I could apply antibiotics. This was not something Boojum, a 20-lb ornery male, sat still for.)
Erm, am i not correct in thinking that cats use thei whiskers to negotiate small spaces. A cats whiskers gor to almost teh same diamater as the cats body, so it never walks intoa spae it acnt get out of ( catflaps, behind sheds, pipes )
so if you cut them off it thinks it can fit anywehre, adn WHAM, stuck kitty.
-= ’ That looks a bit small… but my whiskers dont touch the sides, must be my mind playing tricks on me ’
- saunters in, gets stuck * ’ that’s never happened before… ’ ’ Meoowww’ * sits there for a few days *
’ Meow… ’ - dies * =-
I cut my cat’s whiskers off when I was a little kid because, I felt, they had “grown too long.” He was NOT happy about it. He also was a recluse for most of the time until his whiskers grew back to some appropriate length (probably not to their full size, though). I think a cat’s whiskers are as wide as they are, though I’ve only ever owned two cats. Anyone else here care to make such an observation?
Oh, Qis did too. Yep yep.
my cat seems to be the opposite of that myth; she has all her whiskers at full length, and habitually gets stuck behind my computer tower.
I think the degree to which a cat will be affected by missing whiskers depends on how much they use them. Feral/stray cats that hunt and rack up a lot of mileage around the neiborhood at night rely on them to help sense their environment. The 25lb, 15 year-old tabby who’s never even chased a spider and has a set route from the couch to the litter box to the food dish doesn’t use them as much. Tame, lazy cats don’t rely on whiskers much, so won’t really be adversly affected. A farm cat who has to catch his own dinner every day might not hunt as good or be as stealthy/coordinated until they gow back. I’ve also heard that if you want a cat that will bw a good mouser, to look for one with long whiskers… females seem to be slightly better hunters because they have to in order to feed their kittens.
I don’t call them whiskers; I call them vibrissae.
This is a not-totally-WA guess, but whiskers are probably like any other hair. The follicle is “programmed” to grow the hair for a certain amount of time, then shuts down. After a while, the hair falls out. After a bit, the follicle it will start growing a new hair.
So if you trim your cat’s whisker, the follicle will simply blindly complete the growth cycle, and eventually the chopped-off whisker will fall out. Then a new one will grow in its place, and will grow to be about as long as the old one.