hair growth

Question
My cat is about 4 yrs old now and recently, well actually it's been about 4 months since it happened. He got out when i moved to an apartment and ended up getting bit by something and had to get stitched up and it was a disaster or whatnot. Basically his hair isn't growing back properly. He's real patchy in the area that he was shaved in and where it's growing back really good is where he was actually bitten, and it's really dark colored grey like his tail (but the wound was real close to his tail) when it should be a cream color. It's almost like the other spots are growing ok, but the other's are like barely almost like peach fur growth. It's real strange and i'm confused. Have you heard of this before? Is he fine? Is this typical for cats? He is a gorgeous siamese mix w/heartbreaking blue eyes!

Answer
Hi Darcie!  You'll be happy to know that this is normal.  It can take 6 months or longer for a cat's fur to grow back completely, and it doesn't grow straight and even, like human hair does.  That's because cats have two types of fur - the undercoat, and the guardhairs.  The undercoat is the fuzzier part close to the skin that keeps the cat warm.  It isn't visible unless you part the hair.  The undercoat grows slowly.  

The guardhairs are the shiny hair on the outside of the coat.  Guardhairs are thin and wispy and are mostly used for feeling.  When a cat is shaven, his guardhairs grow back first.  The undercoat grows back more slowly.  It makes the area look strange, almost like the fur was pulled out in clumps.

As for the coloration, this is perfectly normal, too, especially in Siamese.  Here's the scientific reason behind that:

The gene that causes a Siamese's colorpoints (face, ears, legs, tail) to be dark and the body to be light is actually a form of albinism (partial albinism).  The gene makes it so that the cooler parts of the body, like the tail, ears, face, and legs, create the most pigment, so they are dark in color.  The back, belly, chest, and rump stay a lighter color because those areas of the body stay warm, due to heavier blood circulation.  The warmer parts lack the ability to create pigment.

But, what happens when you shave a Siamese's fur?  The skin gets cold.  Being that the partial albinism gene causes dark fur to grow on cold areas, the fur growing back over this cold skin grows in dark.  Once the fur grows in, the skin is kept warm again, and the hairs will be replaced with those cream-colored hairs he's supposed to have.  It can takes months for this to happen, but it does eventually "fix" itself.  

The only possible complication is that if there was any permanent scarring.  Scars prevent blood from circulating to the skin, so the skin in scarred areas stays cool.  If there are scars, your cat may always have a small bit of gray fur there.