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more hairballs...

post #1 of 8
10/14/10 at 3:42pm
Thread Starter 
Ughh, my female medium hair cat has been having more hairballs lately. One about every 3-4 days. She is on miralax to keep her regular as she is borderline megacolon. She is healthy in every other way. I have her on a high quality dry and canned twice daily. I don't want to put her on a hairball food as they have too much fiber. I have been giving her petromalt but she hates the stuff. I have also been brushing her more as she has been grooming more. Any other ideas? I don't think she needs a vet as these are obvious hairballs and not vomit. It just sucks being woken up in the night to clean it up. Yuck!
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post #2 of 8
10/14/10 at 3:46pm
Since she has other GI issues ask the vet about adding a high quality fish oil supplement. I don't think it would be a problem, but your vet would know for sure.

What do you use to brush her? Brush? comb? deshedding tool?

Have you tried other hairball remedies?
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post #3 of 8
10/14/10 at 3:56pm
Thread Starter 
I have added fish oil to her diet for other things, it has made a difference in her coat quality as it is thicker and no more flaky skin. I use a slicker brush and comb to go through her hair and she actually loves being brushed unlike my pigpen boy lol. Her hair is weird as it is super fine and silky almost like rabbit fur. It never mats at all. I think since we moved to a colder climate, she is actually getting a thicker coat. I have to admit that I haven't been as faithful with the petromalt as she hates the stuff. I usually open her mouth and rub the stuff on the roof of her mouth. It just seems weird that she went almost all summer with only the occasional hairball and now they are much more frequent.
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post #4 of 8
10/14/10 at 4:04pm
It's not weird. Look through the forum for the last month or so. Lots of people are having more hairball issues with their cats as fall triggers the undercoats to thicken. My DLH is no exception. (his fur is that same silky rabbity fur like your cat has)

Try getting a deshedding tool. They work on most cats' coats fairly well. A popular one, that should still have a money back guarantee, is the furminator. (They're selling on amazon right now for $8.20! Dang, and to think I paid $30 for mine a couple years ago)
Another popular one for fussy cats is the zoom groom. I find it works better for getting the top coat (guard hairs) than the furminator and will switch off between the two during the week. It costs $5-8, too. A small warning on this one, though - it uses static to hold the hair on the rubber "teeth". In the fall and winter when static gets worse you can accidentally give your cat a good zap when grooming with this one.

Try some different hairball remedies. Some cats are picky and like other types better. Laxatone makes a few flavors, too.

Hopefully a change in grooming and more diligence with a hairball remedy keeps this from becoming a serious issue. If the hairball remedy doesn't help enough, there are some other things you can use, but you'd have to work with the vet on that so as not to complicate anything else.
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post #5 of 8
10/14/10 at 4:15pm
Here is the Furminator for $7.99 on Amazon - but Hurry, this costs over $30 - this will NOT last!!!
This tool is amazing!!
For hairball remedy, I like unsalted butter... Put 1/4 tsp on my finger, and the kitty licks right off... I also add a fiber supplement to my hairball problem kitty Lucky, but this you should discuss with your vet - It solved her problem pretty much completely! The name is Vetasyl
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post #6 of 8
10/14/10 at 5:31pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks guys,
I am going to look into the furminator as it looks pretty cool and i have amazon credit right now. i have tried the laxatone from the vet and she hates that one even more than the petromalt. There is a GNC version i saw at petsmart the other day, but I didn't really want to spend 13 dollars on hairball medicine just because it has the gnc logo on it. I will look at the active ingredient though and compare. I might try the unsalted butter though because she just might like it. I caught her licking the butter when it was out and thought that it was really gross, but now we might be on to something lol. I used to give her the vetasyl before we realized that she needed low fiber in her diet, but that is also when she was on nasty science diet w/d which made her issues worse. Maybe she could still have the vetasyl because her diet is low fiber overall. I will call the vet on that. Thanks for the suggestions!
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post #7 of 8
10/14/10 at 5:38pm
Most cats love butter. I can't leave it unguarded on the counter otherwise Tomas will find it and lick it. If it doesn't help, at least it won't hurt.
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post #8 of 8
10/14/10 at 8:44pm
Have you tried canned pumpkin (not the pumpkin pie filling ones)? My long hair cat loves it. Well, she loves every and any food... she loves petromalt too.

Our other cat likes petromalt (he's a short hair cat so we just give him a little bit as he grooms the long hair cat sometime) but not loves it like the other one. When he was constipated one time, he licked just a little bit of the petromalt off the spoon (how I usually give them petromalt). He wouldn't take more. So I put it on his paws to force him to lick it off. It worked!
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