feral loosing hair or shedding?

I have a few ferals that live outside. We have TNR'd them and feed them and just generally look out for their health.

One of them, named Tiger has started to look really weird of late.

As i mentioned there are three and during our mild winters their coats puff up a bit and get thicker... and then they shed up till summer... our summers are blistering...

I saw tiger a few weeks ago and noticed that his fur around his neck was all patchy... Then last night i saw him again and... he had sort of lost hair right up to his shoulders, but the rest of his was still covered in thick fur.

His head and neck were covered in a shorter fur.

It looked really odd and it's a little weird because the other two seem to have shedded uniformly all over and just had a general coat thinning...

Admittedly, of the 3 Tigers fur got the thickest over winter - is this just a different shedding pattern? or is this vet worthy?

He has yet to be neutered so, it could all be seen to at once. The problem is that he's is like houdini when it comes to the trap.

Does he have bald patches? Or is it just the winter coat fell off on the one part and not the other?
If he needs to go be neutered, why not try trapping him now and let the vet see that weird hair pattern while he's at it?

well that's the plan. to trap him and have him tested and neutered.

a few things are holding it up though...
1- i can'tdrive so it has to be when my husband is in town
2- the vet/assc is currently out of traps

but that's definetely the plan.

is it possible for a cat to loose fur on just one part and not the other?
just seems so strange that he's got short fur down to his shoulders and longish fur everywhere else....

It's possible for a cat to lose fur just on one area of the body, but it's not normal. He very likely has some sort of skin condition.

Best thing to do is trap him and get him treated at the vet ASAP, which I know is what you're planning to do.

In the meantime, you might want to mix a little salmon oil into his food -it's very beneficial for the skin and may help a bit. You can give 500 mg. once per day - it usually comes in gel caps that you can puncture and squirt onto the food.

Just a hint about trapping him since he's elusive: put the trap in the place he's normally fed. Secure the door in the open position with sturdy string or a bungee cord. Put his food near the trap for a couple days, til you're sure he's eating it. Gradually move it toward the trap, and eventually put it in the trap, moving it back little by little each day. This method takes awhile, but it's one way of helping a cat lose his fear of the trap, since he'll begin to associate it with something good.

do you have fleas where you are?
When we had a super bad flea infestation, one of our cats lost more fut around her neck area because she was scratching so much she was pulling her fur out.
If he has bald patches, they may be ringworm.

~Julia

that's what is so weird about the hair loss.... it doesn't look like a skin condition.... or like he is bald...
just looks like half of him as a short coat - and the other half long coat.... by long i mean sort of regular inch long fur
while around his neck is sort of much shorter....

very odd...

anyway...

he's also not a regular feeder so i could put the salmon oil in but it may not be him that picks it up.

will introduce the trap slowly though "