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Watching and hearing your cat hocking up a hairball in the middle of the living room isn’t pretty. Ask any Cat Sitter and they’ll tell you the same thing – it’s one of the most common problems they find with cats, and it’s one of the easiest problems to solve too!
Let us educate you…
Indoor cats seem to have a harder time of things than outside cats. The main reason behind this is because they don’t get enough roughage in their diet. Also, what else is there to do when you are sat at home all day except lick yourself. Yes, you’d guessed it – indoor cats groom much more frequently than outdoor cats do.
As you can imagine, all this regular grooming ends up with more than a bit of fur escaping into their stomachs. This is essentially all a hairball actually is – a buildup of fur that accidentally happens when they are grooming. This means that if you brush your furry friend more often, they will be less likely to ingest their own fur. Plus its therapeutic for you too – what’s not to love?
As well as brushing them regularly, there are a few other things you can do to ensure hairballs aren’t a problem. Ask your cat sitter what treats they feed their cats. We bet they tell you some form of well-known brand and their specific anti-hairball treat. Feeding your cats these treats can help to increase the roughage in their diet, and this will help move the hairballs along naturally so they don’t end up in a hocked-up ball on your kitchen tiles.
Just like with treats, there are specific main menu items that you can feed your cat. We particularly like the Anti-Hairball Pets At Home Advanced Nutrition, but there are plenty of brands that you can make your choice from. You’ll probably find your cats will let you know what brands they like. They can be super fussy creatures!
The dietary supplements that you feed your cat will generally have a couple of things in common if you want to help treat or prevent hairballs. They will normally be foods that contain a lot of fibre to help solve that not-enough-roughage problem we mention earlier on. You may find that they’ll contain some sort of lubricant in them too, either in the form of a natural oil or a fatty acid. When these things work together what you have is something that is going to move that hairball along naturally, and also lubricate it on the way out. It’s the perfect solution. Katalax is a paste that you put on a cat’s paw so that they lick it off. It is a laxative that aids in the elimination of hairballs. We have personally found that this works pretty well.
Of course, there are a few things that you can use at home in a sticky spot to sort out the issue. Tinned sardines will probably give your cat a bit of an icky tummy, but the oily fish will help move those hairballs along if they are getting stuck somewhere in your cats system. Tuna is another great idea, especially the tinned kind. Try to avoid feeding your cat too much of this however…in our experience it does tend to have an adverse effect on what comes out the other end due to it’s richness!
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*Image courtesy of Tina Phillips / FreeDigitalPhotos.net