How normal are hairballs?

[RightsaidFreud]

Pottering in the garden, I've come across a couple of almost cat poo like things on the lawn. Only they seem to have a lot of hair in them! Our girl cat is very long haired, could these be coughed up/pooed out hairballs? We do brush her regularly, but shes always grooming herself. I have zero knowledge of hairballs, are they normal? Anything we need to do incase these are hairballs?

How often is 'regularly'? I groom Seniorboy (who is short haired) every evening - and he loves the attention and the feeling so much that he comes to sit next to me and gives me The Paw if he thinks I'm late.

I get a tremendous amount out and he doesn't sick up furballs. (He's an indoor cat so I would be able to tell.)

At least twice a week. We brush all three, black boy and old lady are both short hair and absolutely love being brushed.

But fluffy girl cat, who needs to be brushed the most, hates it! We try and do it every night, when we do the other two, but sometimes to no avail- she's so temperamental! She's always refurbishing herself. I just hope she isn't in any discomfort when passing them, i will look into that paste stuff.

Liquid paraffin in the cat's food can help with furballs. I've used this for a long-haired cat,in the past.