senses
Head Shaking & Ear Flicking
Irritation or Ear Disease
Your cat shakes its head sharply, flicks one ear, or scratches repeatedly at the same side. An occasional shake is nothing; a pattern on one side is a vet visit.
What the Behaviour Means
Head shaking is a mechanical response: the cat is trying to dislodge something from the ear canal, or to relieve an irritation it cannot reach. A single shake after waking, after grooming, or after coming in from the rain is meaningless. What matters is repetition, asymmetry and persistence — a cat that shakes its head a dozen times an hour, or always flicks the same ear, has a reason.
The feline ear canal is long and takes a sharp right-angled turn before reaching the eardrum, which makes it very good at trapping debris, wax, mites and moisture, and correspondingly difficult to inspect or treat from the outside. Almost nothing that goes wrong in there resolves on its own.
The Usual Causes
In kittens and young cats, ear mites are the overwhelming favourite. They produce an intensely itchy infestation and a characteristic dry, dark, crumbly discharge often compared to coffee grounds. Mites are highly contagious between animals, so one affected kitten in a household generally means treating everybody.
In adults, the picture broadens. Bacterial and yeast infections produce a smellier, waxier discharge and often follow an underlying allergy — in a cat with recurrent ear infections, the ear is the symptom and the allergy is the disease. Grass seeds and foreign bodies cause sudden, dramatic, one-sided shaking in outdoor cats. Polyps, which are benign growths, cause progressive one-sided signs in younger cats. Ear tumours and, rarely, aural tumours in older cats do the same.
Violent shaking carries its own complication: it can rupture blood vessels in the ear flap and produce an aural haematoma, a soft, fluid-filled swelling that turns the ear into a pillow. That needs veterinary attention in its own right, and it is a sign the shaking has been going on longer than anyone noticed.
The Signs That Escalate It
A head tilt held persistently to one side, loss of balance, circling, flicking eye movements or apparent deafness suggest the problem has reached the middle or inner ear. That is a different and more serious category than an itchy outer canal, and it warrants a prompt appointment rather than a wait-and-see.
What to Do
Have the ear examined properly. A vet with an otoscope can see the canal and the eardrum, and a swab under the microscope distinguishes mites from yeast from bacteria — which matters, because the treatments are different and the wrong drops achieve nothing. This is the specific reason not to reach for leftover medication or an over-the-counter cleaner: if the eardrum is perforated, some ear preparations can cause permanent damage.
Do not poke anything into the canal, cotton buds least of all, since they pack debris further down. Clean only the visible part of the ear flap, only if asked to, and only with a product your vet has supplied. If mites are confirmed, treat every cat and dog in the house at the same time, or you will simply pass them around.
🐾 Most common in
Kittens and rescue cats for mites; outdoor cats for grass seeds; allergic cats and those with narrow canals for recurrent infections. Some breeds with folded or heavily furred ears need more frequent checks.
