Hairballs!?!?

tk123

Can somebody tell me what a hairball looks like - does it just look like spit!? It's just that my cat spit up yesterday and I don't know if it was sick or a hairball...he spent the next 10 mins after I wiped it up trying to bury it by scraping at the lino!!

tovalee

mine does that when hes trying to hack a hairball. he'll gag and spit up fluid or food once or twice. itll stop once he passes the hairball, which looks like ...well, a matted ball of hair!

Alun

Often though, it's only a very small amount of hair, so to call it a ball is a bit of an exaggeration. Usually in the case of our cats it's just a bit of spit with a few blades of grass and hairs mixed up in it.

tk123

Thanks guys!! I'll brush him more and see if that helps him - he loves it!

tovalee

Alun wrote:

Often though, it's only a very small amount of hair, so to call it a ball is a bit of an exaggeration. Usually in the case of our cats it's just a bit of spit with a few blades of grass and hairs mixed up in it.

not with my cat! i brush him regularly and he still sheds like crazy and passes big wads of hair. poor ol fella.

Alun

It depends on the cat, I suppose. Our two are both short haired, and hardly shed at all, even in the summer. I guess we brush them maybe once a month at the most.

dearg_doom

Our cat is long-haired, very fluffy, won't let us brush her, is ALWAYS grooming herself, And she's never coughed up a hairball!

Unless she does it outside.