broken whiskers

sunlion

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I've asked about this before, but Sparky seems to have a very large number of whiskers broken off on both sides of his face. I he has, say, 15 whiskers, 9 or 10 of them are short. There's always a few that are a couple of inches long, but most of them are under one inch.

Do whiskers just grow in more slowly than I think? I mean, could these be the same short whiskers from a couple months ago? Or is this a sign of a deficiency in his diet? Is this common for young cats who are so active, or for cats who like to be in small places?

I'm more curious than worried, though I'm also curious to know if I should be worried . . .

 

sandie

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I am not really informed on the whisker situation. I should probably look into it though, now that I have a curiosity
 

tigger

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Is there another cat in your household that is playing mommy to Sparky? Tigger plays mommy to Scooter, and most of his whiskers are chewed down, and I mean really chewed down. The ones that are growing are the really thin ones that she can't bite off. I asked a few breeders on my bengal list, and this is normal..... it isn't harmful to him. Scooter looks absolutely silly!
 

sandie

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Okay, this is what I found out. First off, cats generally have 12 whiskers on each side. There are 3 different conclusions. Mother cats can chew them off, stress can lead to them breaking off and finally, some cats have a pre disposition to brittle whiskers such as the Rex's.
 
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sunlion

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So it's probably because he's still 'nursing' on Blackie. Blackie is very patient with it - makes me glad we insisted on petting his belly he was a kitten himself, he's used to being touched there.

I guess I thought Sparky would be done sucking by now!

But I wanted to be sure, you know, like some people have brittle hair and nails and it gets better if they change their diet kind of thing.
 
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sunlion

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Just wanted to let y'all know that Sparky's whiskers seem to be coming in okay now. He's nursing a lot less so that must have been the problem. Either they were breaking off or Blackie was biting them off. Actually, he still tries to nurse, and it's pretty funny because he's as long as Blackie, just not as bulky. And when he finds something to latch on to, I can actually see his lips move! It's cute. Strange, but cute.
 

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Scooter's whiskers were actually starting to get long, believe it or not, until Wednesday. Tigger really nawed them down to stubs. You could hear her chewing them down & pulling at them!
 
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