Best Hairless Cat Care Tips

Sure they look weird, but a hairless cat makes an excellent pets. They are affectionate, loyal, and have a silly disposition that many people compare to dogs. However, caring for a hairless cat is different from taking care of a regular domestic cat.

Hairless cats require special care. Did you know that they have special needs for bathing, ear care, eye care, skin care, sleeping arrangements, and more?

Hairless cats were bred to remain inside (or at least out of the sun). Try not to let your kitty go in the sun. He or she will get a bad sunburn in a very short amount of time. Repeated overexposure can lead to skin cancer.

Feeding

Hairless cats have a higher metabolism. They burn off calories quicker and they don’t have as much hair as other cats. As a result, they lose body heat much quicker. They need a little extra help to stay warm and extra food to restore their fuel supply.

Be sure to keep their food dishes full at all times to make sure they get enough to eat. Wash the food and water dishes at least twice a week with soap and water. Put fresh water in the water dish twice each day.

But please don’t…

As with any cat, don’t feed them low-end cat food. Talk to your vet about getting high quality food or your breeder. Avoid buying large bags unless you have more than four cats as the food will usually not stay fresh and spoil. Consider purchasing an air tight container to keep kitty’s food nice and fresh.

Cat Beds

It’s a good idea to have a few cat beds with warm fluffy blankets throughout the house since hairless cats get cold easy. Put one in almost every room. You don’t have to buy them all at once if expense is an issue but try to get around to having several beds throughout the home.

Clip And Clean Claws

Clip their claws as often as needed – perhaps once or twice a month. It varies with each cat, but you can tell when their claws get really sharp. You can wipe their nails (claws) each week.

I use baby wipes because they have lanolin, which gets the nail residue off quickly and easily. You can either do it before or after clipping the nails. Experiment to see which way works best for your kitty. Like all cats, hairless cats may not be able to make their nails immaculate, but they do a pretty good job.

One way they clean their nails is by nibbling at the old nail build-up – sort of like a person would bite their nails. They don’t actually bite off the tips, but they do pull off loose bits of claw and junk that accumulates around the cuticle area.

Another way they clean their claws is to scratch on wood, carpet, or furniture. That can wreck a house pretty quick. Cat furniture is designed to help cat-proof a house. The kitty condos/scratching posts simulate things a cat would use to clean and sharpen her claws when in the wild.

I make it a point to have several scratching posts, scratch pads, and cat furniture throughout the house as a deterrence to using door frames and sofas as claw sharpeners.

Wipe Eyes

Some hairless cats have no eye lashes so they tend to get a lot of junk in the corner of their eyes. The eyes should be wiped once a week with a warm, moist wash cloth. Don’t use soap or baby wipes. That’ll make their eyes burn. Be sure to wash the cloth in between each use. Eyes are vulnerable to infection.

Bathing Cat

Bathe your hairless cat weekly or at least once every 2 weeks. Because the cat has no hair, its natural oils in the skin can get on fabric surfaces. (For example, if your hairless cat is grey and you haven’t given it a bath in a few weeks, it may leave a cat mark after sleeping on your white sheets.) Use a mild, no-dye, allergy-free shampoo. Lightly rub the shampoo on the cat and rinse. I know that you are probably thinking that most cats don’t like water and don’t like getting bathed. While this is also true of hairless cats, but they do tend to tolerate baths more as times goes on. Patience….. Don’t make bath time a bad experience for your hairless cat. Be extra cautious when drying the kittens off around there legs. The bones in this area are tiny and fragile. We don’t want kitty to suffer a broken bone or a dislocated joint. Only grip the body and be gentle. Never hold onto a single leg by itself.