Why do cats barf so much??!!

[PussinJimmyChoos]

My mum's cat used to regularly barf, even though we checked him out and he was fine...in fact, it earned him the affectionate nick name of the boffer and he progressed from heaving by his bowl to leaving artistically placed chunks of regurgitated Whiskas on the stairs...

Fast forward to my mum's next two cats - and they do the same..and seem to favour the soft landing for it..ie the shag pile

I took pity on neighbours cat the other day, let him in, fed him...he wanders into living room with a guilty expression and hey presto...he had barfed up stairs..

Why?!!!

Because they lick themselves clean and swallow loads of hair - then it all comes up. I think. Mixed with Whiskas, as you say, plus dead mice ears etc.
As for fondness for nice soft carpets - well aren't we all?

hair balls.

Oh yes. I got out of bed once and stepped in a pile of reguritated whiskas - all spit and meaty lumps.

You need a dog to eat it.....

TMI but never seems to be any hair in it..

I really want a cat for us as DS loves them, as do I but DH has been put off by all the barfing of the cats we have known!

Maybe they are bulimic (sp) cats?!!

I've only known one of my cats to be sick once. have you tried changing their food? It could be that.

My cats are pukers too, I've tried changing their food and it has helped a bit but I've a sneaking suspicion that I'm not the only one feeding them. I wouldn't mind so much if they puked on the other person's carpet for a change!

I think someone said on a thread the other day that they favour soft surfaces for barfing on because they're less likely to get splattered than if they puke on tiles or similar. That sounds sufficiently like twisted cat 'logic' to be true (I mean, if they were REALLY intelligent they'd throw up down the loo, or go and do it in a flowerbed or something).

One of mine voms and the other clears up after him, which is boaktastic but kind of handy.

Small meals little and often, plus no food if been outside eating grass/mice, has reduced the piles of vom in my house.

Worm tablets help too and maybe grooming your cat, although we've been meaning to brush our one for years and just never have time.

They also eat grass to help them be sick and bring up the hairballs.

My DD has become extremely good at finding and pointing out cat sick to us. She's trod/sat/and put her hand in it quite a few times so she's learnt from experience.

www.catsofaustralia.com/cat-toilet.htm

Do you think we can then teach them to barf in the toilet a la a model before Paris fashion week debut??

Personally I find Whiskas is the most barftastic cat food out there (in my catmummy and professional opinion). My beautiful girl has much less barfing now she no longer has whiskas.
DH reckons she does it just to annoy him!!!!
Though looking at her snuggled up on the sofa next him just now I find that hard to believe.

the entire ground floor of our house is laminate except for a very small wool rug infront of the sofa, guess where the cat always pukes??

my cats are barfers too - no medical reason for it. they are locked into the kitchen every night and virtually every morning we come down to a new pile of sick. (usually but not always with hair in it!).

My cat does it and I think it's because she's neurotic.

no, stay with me on this...

She over grooms her fur when she's wound up, then of course she has to cough up the hairball.

my cat appears to have a barfing cycle 3 weeks of happiness and one week of barfing hell - came very close to re-homing him last month but love him too much really

Because they are cats. It's part of the Master Plan.

The only cat I owned who barfed a lot had a hormonal imbalance and needed hormone tablets all her life. When she didn't have them enough, she would pull huge chunks of fur out of her back and of course the resultant hairballs meant she was sick more often than normal - usually somewhere inconvenient like down the back of a radiator, or in my sock drawer.

But she was an unusual case ime. In fact, I don't really think cats do barf that much, do they? My current two don't (though the one behind me now has just sneezed and made me jump!) Sometimes we get a small amount of spit with some grass blades in it to clean up, but usually it is on the kitchen floor or outside, so not a problem.

When one of them was sick a few months ago, they puked neatly onto a book ds3 had left lying on the floor. It was very thoughtful of them actually as I only had to wipe the cover of the book and spray it with disinfectant, rather than try to get cat puke out of the carpet!

Good question

All the cats I have ever had barfed a lot. Just thought it was a cat thing

Most of them also ate it again.

My cat never eats it again, just begs for more food cos his tummy is emptied . When I was a child we had a cat and a dog - the dog used to eat the cat sick and earned the nickname 'hoover'

I think if you've ruled out the obvious things like needing to brush long fur, diet, asking the vet etc then you are just left with a pukey puss.

We've had two in past. It used to drive me nuts. Forever a pile of vom which I'd invariably paddle in stumbling downstairs in bare feet in the mornings.

One we had was forever doing his bag-pipes impression. He looked like a set of bag-pipes inflating and deflating at high speed before throwing up..yeuch. But he used to chew at his fur a lot cos he had eczema.

Thankfully our new cat now seems to be ok. I've only seen him do it twice.