Why is my cat suddenly losing hair on her ears, tail, and face?

Hi, thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! Poor Blossom! Her skin on her ears looks bad. I think she should see a Vet to diagnose the cause and start treatment. Possible causes are food allergies, ringworm, mites. You can play with her diet and see if changing the protein helps for long term management. If an animal has a food allergy chicken tends to be the most common allegen. But that won’t help her feel better in the short term. Ringworm is diagnosed on fungal culture and mites on a skin scrape. An infection is treated with antibiotics and steroids. I hope this helps and I wish Blossom a speedy recovery!

I would be really suspicious of ringworm. Although there could be other causes as well such as stick tight fleas, frost bite, infections, etc. I would encourage you to have him evaluated by your veterinarian soon. In the meantime please practice good hygiene after handling him as ringworm is contagious to people as well. Best of luck and thank you for using Pet Coach.

Hi there and thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach to address your concern. Judging from the photos you have provided, I would suspect this to be a severe allergic reaction or something such as a cancerous skin condition of the ear pinna. I would recommend having a veterinarian examine this so that the most appropriate diagnostic and treatment recommendations can be made. Vampira may need a course of steroids to treat this if it is a mosquito bite hypersensitivity or other allergy. I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns and I would be more than happy to help you further.

You are correct that this warrants a veterinary visit. Exactly what you said it could be multiple things. This could be from an infection on and in the ears, ear mites, it also can be fungal. Thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

Ringworm typically presents as lesions on the head and face. This area looks more indicative of a flea allergy or stress related licking. Cats with fleas will often develop an allergy where they start to lick and chew at the area on their lower back. This condition usually requires the cat be treated for the fleas and medication to reduce the itchiness. This could also be compulsive licking or another type of skin infection/allergy. I recommend having her seen by a veterinarian when possible for an exam and treatment. You may want to put a cone on her if she is licking the area to prevent her from further irritating it.

This is a tricky question because a bacterial skin infection, ringworm, and skin mites can all appear very similar. The only way to tell them apart is by either treating for one of them or doing specific skin tests like a skin scrape, a skin cytology, and a fungal culture. I think it is ok that you are using the Malaseb shampoo for now. If the issue does not resolve over the course of a week or so then you may want to have your cat examined by your vet to determine the exact cause of hair loss. I hope this helps. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. Best of luck.

It looks like scabbing may be on Wizard's head. This can be from irritation from his ear or even eye. If he is trying to rub or scratch one or the other he can be getting this spot. I would recommend a visit to the veterinarian to have his eye, ear and skin in the area evaluated. Thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.