How many hairs on a cat?

Second Calculation

My first calculation below was based on what appears to be an accepted number: the number of hair strands per square inch. The widely published figure is around 130,000 but it might fall to 60,000 depending on the part of the body. I have spent the last 15 minutes looking at my cat’s fur and he became a little irritated 🙂 . I now don’t believe that there are 130,000 hair strands per square inch. It is very hard to estimate the number. My gut feeling is that the number is somewhere nearer 10,000 hairs per square inch or less. That would make the overall figure about one tenth of my first calculation, which is 3 million hair strands. My current thinking is that there are about 3 million hairs on a cat (domestic).

Sadly, this is largely guesswork because there is no available science on this. It is left to the layperson. Me or you.

Maine Coon Fire Storm.

First Calculation

An average domestic cat has 30 million hairs. My calculation is based on very loose measurements of my cat. In fact I have not measured him. I have simply decided that his body is about 15 inches long and the circumference of his body is also about 15 inches. The average cat has 130,000 strands of hair per square inch.

My cat’s body is 225 square inches (15 x 15). If you multiply that figure by the number of hair strands per square inch you come to the figure of 30 million if you add in 750,000 hair strands for the tail, head, neck and legs.

I have rounded the figure because it will vary obviously between individual cats. The key piece of information is the number of hair strands per square inch. All you have to do is measure your cat in inches. From that you can work out the area of your cat in square inches and this figure is then multiplied by 130,000.

Now the puzzle is: how many hairs on a Sphynx? It is not zero. Sphynx cats have bum fluff over them but it is sparse. I’d expect the number of hair strands to be a fraction of 30m and add in ten whiskers.

SOME MORE ON FUR:

Picture of cat covered in polystyrene balls due to static electricity

Comments

How many hairs on a cat? — 3 Comments

Tony on April 28, 2019 at 12:31 am said:
A full grown cat may have over a billion hairs!!!
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R M on December 22, 2017 at 7:13 am said:
I’m up for the challenge. My Sphynx won’t sit still. My husband suggests to take a picture and count from there. The problem is the scale of the picture and, of course, the distortion since she’s a study in movement. 🙂
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- Michael Broad on December 22, 2017 at 7:17 am said:
  🙂 Tell me can you see the fine hairs on her skin? Can u photograph it? I have held a Sphynx at a cat show but have never lived with one.
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