Any idea what's happened to my kittens ear?!

[KittyOuchies]

Just found him like this.

He's 5 months old and 100% indoor cat!

Have cleaned it with salt water and will go vets at 9am.

But I'm just baffled at what's happened. It looks like a whole layer of skin is gone?

Do you have any other animals? Or anything hot like a wood burner?

Could he have burnt it on anything? Possibly something like a hot bulb in a lamp, or something hot in the kitchen?

I have a dog but they don't interact unsupervised, the last time they saw each other was about 3 days ago. The dog is on the ground floor and the cat has the run of 2 upper floors, completely seperated, so it's not the dog. Also I thought of a burn but non of the skin or fur is singed and there's nothing hot upstairs!

He's been in DDs most of the day as we've had people in and out and there's no candles, lamps, anything. Radiator hasn't been on as its warm. The only bultb is the ceiling lamp.

I'm really confused

If he scratched his own ear it would have lines wouldn't it?

Looks like the skin has been itchy and he's groomed and groomed and groomed, thus rubbing it raw.

Mites?

Oh that's a possibility but his paws aren't bloody.

I've just cleaned blood from there so of it was from him rubbing his white feet would be bloody?

He might have been rubbing his head/ear against something if his ear is really itchy. Does inside his ear look gunky?

Yeah I would agree that he has some kind of irritation and he has scratched it . He will of licked his paw clean if it had blood on it.

Thanks. I'll update tomorrow with the vets thoughts and treatment.