Why is my cat ripping out the fur on her tail?

Today I was lying in bed and watching my cat groom herself on her cat perch. I became alarmed when I noticed she was biting and ripping out the fur on her tail! She's medium to long haired so I thought she might be getting out some tangles, but when she jumped up to visit me on the bed I noticed her tail is now incredibly bare. Nothing in her environment has changed, so I have no idea what could be causing this.





Her sister doesn't appear to have any fur loss, although I've come across quite a few huge clumps of black hair that she's somehow dropped. My fiance suspects it is carnage resulting from the two cats fighting (which they don't do very often or very severely) so I'm not entirely convinced.





I'll call the vet today but I wanted to see if anybody else has dealt with this.Why is my cat ripping out the fur on her tail?
My vets says that excessive grooming results from some sort of stress or it could be allergies. If it is stress induced - it would be the same thing as a person biting their fingernails when they are stressed out about something. It is called psychogenic alopecia. It was the right thing to do to call your vet. They can do some basic tests to be sure that it isn't physical and also talk to you about things in your home to see if anything has change etc. to get to the issue. We ended up with kitty prozac and it worked wonders.





Good luck.Why is my cat ripping out the fur on her tail?
Another thing that could be happening is the cat has been in the brush and is full of stickers. My house has an abandon lot next door and he loves to got there and find treats for me. I have to work and work to get all the *crap*out of his fur. His tail is especially attractive to every little seed wanting to go on a joy ride. I finally cut most of the fur off his tail. He seems to be a little happier. The tail looked as if it had been dipped in heavy black grease.
Providing she doesn't have fleas, it could be that your cat has skin allergies (very common). or it could be a nervous condition.
It could be anything from over grooming (ocd) , allergies, or fleas (that is the main area they go to on cats)
My cat does that, he's an outdoor cat, but he's always had skin conditions. Sometimes he would get lumps under his fur or open sores. We took him to the vet and he said it was nothing serious. Besides that, he's recently started doing that, ripping out his own fur. He's actually been doing this for awhile too, at first his back was bald from doing this then when the hair grew back, he started doing it to his legs and those became bald. We give him flea medicine every month so we didn't know what was going on. So when we took him to the vet they didn't know what was wrong with him, they gave him some kind of shot, but he was back to it again. I've researched the internet about it and I came across this idea that cats actually get OCD. If they have nothing to do, they just keep grooming and grooming themselves. I know it's weird and I'm not a vet but just watching my cat that's all he does, he would walk up to me with fur stuck to his mouth. I just thought I would tell you, because my vet couldn't even figure it out. This could be a possibility, but I hope you find out what's wrong with your cat, because I'm sure it's uncomfortable for the cat and you as well.