Buying solid white Maine Coon kittens and the chances of deafness

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This is a report in layman's terms of congenital sensorineural deafness (CSD) in white blue-eyed cats of various breeds including the Maine Coon cat. The word 'sensorineural' refers to the nervous system transmitting sound signals from the ears to the brain to perceive sound. CSD concerns a defect that a cat is born with affecting the nerves that transmit sound to the brain. It is the dominant white gene (W) which can damage the hearing of cats.

RELATED: Why are domestic cats white?

Buying solid white Maine Coon kittens and the chance of deafness
Good chance of suffering from CSD. Image now in the public domain.

In all, 122 white purebred kittens and 61 coloured kittens between the ages of 6-21 weeks were examined.

The occurrence of CSD in solid white kittens overall was 30.3% with deafness in both ears at 15.9% and deafness in one ear at 14.4% (unilateral).

Deafness was more common in white kittens with blue irises. When the kitten had one blue iris the occurrence of deafness was at 44.4%. When both eyes had blue irises the occurrence of deafness was at 50%. When neither eye was blue but the cat was white the occurrence of deafness was at 22.2%.

Kittens with one blue iris were 3.2 times more likely to have CSD than kittens without blue irises.

In solid white kittens, CSD occurred in 7 of 15 (46.7%) Turkish Van cats, 8 of 18 (44%) Maine Coon cats, 18 of 41 (43.9%) of Norwegian Forest cats, 3 of 11 (27.3%) British Shorthair cats, 2 of 12 (16.7%) of Devon Rex cats, 2 of 12 (8.3%) Persian cats, 1 in 21 (4.8%) Russian Blue cats, and zero of two Sphynx cats.

The study found that the prevalence of CSD was significantly higher for Maine Coon kittens compared to for example, Russian kittens. Comment: I am not completely sure what the scientists mean by "Russian". They imply that it is the Russian Blue but being blue there should be no white kittens! But breeders are breeding white Russian kittens nowadays as I understand it.

The study found that if a Maine Coon kitten is born solid white there is an up to 40% chance of being deaf in both ears or one ear. This compares to 27.3% in British Shorthair cats. And, by comparison, under the same conditions, less than 17% of other breeds investigated i.e. the Russian, Persian, Devon Rex. The reason might be that solid white Maine Coon kittens more commonly have blue irises which, as mentioned, increases the chance of the kitten suffering from CSD.

Comment: it's hard to come to a conclusion and the original study is quite complicated but my impression is that the Maine Coon cat when solid white is more likely than other breeds to suffer from congenital sensorineural deafness.

Purchasers of white Maine Coon kittens

Purchasers of white Maine Coon kittens (and white kittens are very popular) need to be cognisant of the fact that there is a good chance that they will be purchasing a deaf cat either in one ear or both ears. And that deafness will be due to a defect in the transmission of sound from the ear to the brain via nervous system. CSD describes a disease which affects the transmission of sound through the nervous system i.e. it is the nerves which are malfunctioning as stated at the beginning.

Study

Prevalence of congenital sensorineural deafness in a population of client-owned purebred kittens in the United Kingdom. Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/jvim.15515

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Please forgive the occasional typo as these articles are written at high speed.

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