Long Whiskers

[lilleah]

so Brandon and I were just talking about how long Mushi's whiskers are. And they are real long...He says that when Mushi gets older, he'll have super long whiskers.

Then we got to talking about whether or not you can clip the whiskers.

Can you?? Brandon says it throws off thier balance. Which I didnt know. Then of course, I was like "DUH I am a member of TCS! They'll know!"

So now it's on you guys...
What's up with clipping thier whiskers?

 

[tru]

Oh Nooooooooooooooooooooo!

Cats whiskers are very important to them.
Below is an excerpt from an article about them.

"Also known as "tactile hairs" or vibrissae, whiskers are the long, thick, flexible hairs on a cat's face. These hairs are located in horizontal rows on the whisker pad, the puffy area between the top corners of your cat's mouth and the outer edges of his nose. Whiskers, like hair and nails, do fall out and are replaced. But whiskers are different from the cat's body hair in a few ways:
Whiskers should never be cut or trimmed (we'll discuss why later).
Whiskers are two to three times thicker than the cat's hair.
Whiskers are rooted very deep in the cat's face, in an area rich in nerves and blood vessels.
In addition to having the long tactile hairs on their cheeks, cats also have shorter ones above their eyebrows, on their chin and on the back of their front legs. Since we are most familiar with facial whiskers, let's look at what they are good for:
Navigation
Mood indication
Measuring an opening"

Here is the link to the full page
http://science.howstuffworks.com/question592.htm

 

[commonoddity042]

Your bf is right about not clipping them. The whiskers are used to gague whether or not they can fit into spaces.

 

[cearbhaill]

Whiskers serve a lot of functions as one of a cats most tactile features, so I would never ever intentionally cut them.
That said, I have seen a few lost in grooming shop "accidents" and they do grow back in without incident.

 

[goldenkitty45]

Leave the whiskers alone - some cats have very long ones, some have short or none (rexes cause of the curly fur have curly whiskers or broken ones; some devons or sphynx have none).

I think its kinda cool to see a cat with long whiskers - when you have cats that don't have them, its a little weird to see normal whiskers

 

[lilleah]

Well that settles that one then.

Thanks

Now I know.

 

[jen]

When I got my one cat, her whiskers were all clipped really short. Maybe an inch long. Someone told me that the mother cat will do that sometime but I can't remember why.

 

[liberty's buddy]

Liberty has really long whiskers. She lost about half of them after I got her. They came out in a period of about a week. They literally fell out. (Liberty was pretty malnourished when I adopted her so I figure it was from that.) After they grew back her balance was better. Liberty doesn't like people to even touch her whiskers. She is also very proud of them. -kd

 

[nerelda]

Wow! How ironic! I was just wondering about this only 10 minutes ago! LOL

The reason I was wondering is cause the ones by his eyebrows are incredibly long, probably just as long as the ones by his nose.

 

[trouts mom]

What an interesting thread!