Hairball Question on Rescue Cat

Hi Susie is 5 years old and spent 90 days in a Animal Control Shelter cage. They fed her dry cat food with a bite of wet food each day. She has been with us since November 1, 2016.  She passed a hairball about 2 weeks ago. I read up on them and because it was relatively small I decided to just watch her. Today I found a rather large 3 to 4 inch long and 3/4 inch tapering to 1/4 inch wide. I think she coughed this up approx. 2 or 3 days ago. Ewww should have seen it sooner right?

Anyway she is really finicky with food and I am still working on finding the right brands/flavors. After two months of research and trail and error, I thought I had 3 brands of high quality wet canned food that she liked. However, yesterday she would not eat the chicken flavor at all. So, I thought Susie, I own you you don't own me.  Today I gave her the favorite, duck. She usually gobbles this right up and sure enough she did.  She did not eat it at lunch and she did not eat it at dinner though.  

Also, she has been sleeping in the closet a lot. I never see her hacking or coughing. She is not an easy cat. She hisses and does not like being touched.

Her new diet has improved her coat and made much more playful these past few weeks. Plus, she has gobbled everything I know she likes and comes to get when it is close to one of her meal times.

I have done tons of reading in books, this site, watched you tube etc. So, I know what could happen and what I need to do.

A) groom her more

B) try pumpkin or some other high fiber product etc.

C) get some cat grass for her to nibble on

D) try a bit of butter

E) go the pet store for a commercial hair ball treatment

F) etc.

So here is what I want someone with more experience to help me with:

1. Can hairballs get so bad in the intestinal track that there are several packed in there?

2. How long does it take for a cat to get a blockage?

3. How long does it take for a hair ball to form in a cat?

4. Is there something I have over looked or not asked?

Thank you.

I agree with your A through D and would not use a commercial hairball treatment yet.  If she likes it (mine do) you could add a bit of bacon fat to her wet food.  That will nourish her skin, and the skin nourishes the coat.  You have not had her that long and after 90 days in Animal Control, where she got no exercise and a dry food diet (amazing they even gave her wet food or kept her 90 days actually), it will take at least 90 days of your good food and care to start seeing some progress.  She is probably shedding more now because she is actually growing in a nice new coat and dropping the old.

As for the second set of questions, yes, they can indeed get totally blocked and in that case, you can expect to see everything she eats being vomited back up, hopefully followed by the offending hairballs.  The "how long" questions cannot be answered as there are too many variables.  Also, you are feeding her three times a day which is very healthy for her, but in animal control I bet she was only fed once a day, so she is more likely to eat her fill at one meal and not each much at the others. 

Is her stool normal or is it dry?  How often does she move her bowels?  Is she getting some good exercise daily (i.e. like with DaBird toy or other things like the laser light that get her to run and jump)?  Is she overweight?  Might she be interested in some freeze dried raw food?  Check on the Nutrition Forum for lots of advice for healthy diets.  The ideal cat diet is simple -- animal protein (NOT vegetable protein), animal fat, and less than 10% carbohydrates.  A lot of the new "grain free" foods have replaced the former grains with high calorie things such as potato starch, sweet potatoes, legumes, peas, and pea protein, and carrots.  Depending on how much of these are used, they can unbalance the diet from what a natural cat in the wild would eat -- small animals, lizards, snakes, birds and the like - so try to get back to basics as much as possible.  You have only had her for two months so it will take some more time for her to bloom into the healthy cat she will become with proper care, feeding and exercise.

 I don't blame Susie for being grumpy after being in animal control for 90 days.  Who knows what her life was like before? Her last family abandoned her.  I have one cat who spent over a year in a no kill shelter.  She was in a room with other cats, not caged, but fed only dry food, and she developed urinary problems and was an extremely grumpy girl.  It took basically three months to get her healthy again, and now she is just fine.  She likes to be petted now.  She no longer bites.  She is happy.  She has been here 15 months now.  She is not up for adoption, but if someone local and with no other cats wanted to try her as a pet, I would be glad to do that because I think she would be happier to be an only cat, but we'll probably never know because ALL my friends and family have other cats.

I'll send you a few links by private message that I have found very useful in learning how to read labels, choose food wisely, and keep the cats healthy without going totally broke.  Susie is so lucky that you adopted her. 

Thanks for the great support post. 

Here are answers to your questions.

Is her stool normal or is it dry?  Her stools have been great. However, she skipped eating on Wednesday altogether and ate only once today. So, I will be paying close attention tomorrow. She is not an only cat. I have a 7 month kitten, JT, and he is eating like a champ and very sweet. So, I will try to 'catch' them using the litter boxes, but I may just end of counting pees and poops to determine if there is a change over the next few days.

How often does she move her bowels?  Not sure, but I think both of them move them once per day each. The peeoop ratio is like 6:2, I think. I haven't really charted them, but will because clearly this information is good to know.

Is she getting some good exercise daily (i.e. like with DaBird toy or other things like the laser light that get her to run and jump)? I play with both cats at least twice a day. She was very active last week and not so much this week. She did come out for the da bird exercise, but then she paid more attention to JT (he was in a crate, baby play hog right?) and she just sat and pawed at it a little. I felt good that I got out of the closet anyway. Today, I shut the door so she wouldn't go back in. 

Is she overweight?  Oh boy...when we first got her she was 15 lbs. SHD and the vet felt she could lose a few lbs. However, she lost 5 lbs transitioning into our home. She did not eat for 15 days. Then when we got that sorted. I began to work on changing her from the dry kibble to wet. Our vet said get Friskies or Sheba. At that point I just wanted her to eat. She loved the whitefish Friskies (learned tons about food later...so..). She was switched over in 2 weeks to wet, my first goal. BTW this is when JT came from another rescue. He stayed separated for first 18 days or so. Once she started eating she gained she looks about 12 lbs now and I think it is a good weight.

Might she be interested in some freeze dried raw food? She may.

Check on the Nutrition Forum for lots of advice for healthy diets.  I spend hours everyday on this activity.

I have started an article on hard it is to feed cats. When I finish it I send it to you for a grin. 

Thank you again. I really appreciate your help.

Today I called the vet. She suggested an over the counter product from the pet store. Nothing specific. Instead I went and bought a can of pumpkin. I had Metamucil here from the original problem with Susie. I tried putting a little of that on some fishy cat food that she has really responded to. She got up and checked it out, but returned to her bed. I also made some beef broth for her and set it very near where she was sleeping. JT liked it. Then I gave a little syringe full of olive oil. So now I'm waiting. she hasn't really done anything in the litter box today. So, tomorrow morning I will try again and if nothing changes call the vet again. 

Susie is not doing well. I have an appointment to take her to the vet hospital tomorrow. 

So, Susie's anal glands were impacted and infected. So here is to tomorrow.