What causes a cat to bite his hair of?

Question

I have a 7 year old male long-haired cat that bites the hair off of his back, mainly in the area of the base of the tail. i have noticed a few fleas and have treated him for the fleas but just didn't know if that would be related to him biting his fur off. thanks.

Answer 1

Most of the time this is caused by allergies. Most of the allergies are in the food you are feeding and most of the time that food is dry food. Corn and grains are just not the ebst thing for an obligate carnivore

Nutrition since there are so many bad things out there is very important to your cat’s health
Contrary to what you may have heard, dry foods are not a great thing to feed a cat.
Dry foods are the number 1 cause of diabetes in cats as well as being a huge contributing factor to kidney disease, obesity, crystals, u.t.i’s and a host of other problems. Food allergies are very common when feeding dry foods.
The problems with it are that they are loaded with carbohydrates which many cats (carnivores) cannot process. Most of the moisture a cat needs is gotten
out of the food and 95% of it is zapped out of dry foods in the processing. Also, most use horrible ingredients and don't use a muscle meat as the primary ingredient and use vegetable based protein versus animal. Not good for an animal that has to eat meat to survive.
You want to pick a canned food w/o gravy (gravy=carbs) that uses a muscle meat as the first ingredient and doesn't have corn at least in the first 3 ingredients if at all. Fancy feast is a middle grade food with 9lives, friskies whiskas lower grade canned and wellness and merrick upper grade human quality foods.Also, dry food is not proven to be better for teeth. Please read about cat nutrition.
http://www.newdestiny.us/nutritionbasics.html
http://www.catinfo.org/feline_obesity.htm
http://maxshouse.com/feline_nutrition.htm#Dry_Food_vs_Canned_Food.__Which_is_reall

Answer 2

Ever see a flea under a micro scope?Holly Wood has yet to make a scarier monster! Those Evil lil bastards live by biting into the flesh with razor sharp fangs and sucking out the blood.If you have ever been bitten by a big horse fly you know how your pet feels , only with fleas ..its 100s of bites 24-7. You will need to get the flea pill for your pet, this will keep the fleas at bay until you kill them in the carpets, furniture etc .then a fresh flea collar 3xs a yr. ($4-5 each) and you won't have this problem any more

Answer 3

Sounds like a typical reaction to fleas - hair often goes missing off the back due to biting. Just to check, what treatment did you use? There are many different kinds and they're all different. If you've used a product from a store, it will not work and your cat's problem will continue. You really need to get a proper treatment from a vet i.e Frontline, Advantage or Revolution.

Chalice

Answer 4

Many cats are allergic to the fleas and it will cause them to have a LOT of hair loss. Treat with something GOOD and treat for three months in a row....the fleas are in the house also!!!

Answer 5

It can be stress or my cat has flea dermatitis and he is allergic to fleas and thats y he bites off his fur

Answer 6

fleas would be the reason. it hurts them to bit their fur off. try pulling hair out of your skin. He needs to be re-treated for fleas.

Answer 7

Perhaps something is irritating him.
It could be what your treating him with
or just household items.
Taking him to a vet might help.
If you have used something new recently in your house like a spray of some sort or anything new in your house try removing it to see if your cat stops. If not take him to the vet. It could be a skin condition or something.

Hope I helped =]

Answer 8

i read somewhere once that STRESS can cause a cat to do this. he may also be infested with itchy fleas