Advice r.e. cat over grooming

[Ellamayparky]

Hello there,

I wondered if anyone had any advice/recommendations of things to help with cat over grooming. Our tortoiseshell cat has just started this habit back up after months of a full coat of hair. She's really going at the base of her tail. We've tried stinky stuff but she just licks it off. Was considering CBD but just wanted to check in with others to see if there are any other things to try. We are taking her to the vet tomorrow to rule out any physical health stuff but she has over groomed before and we feel it's more behavioural, although there haven't really been many changes or significant things that have happened to start this behaviour of again.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated as feel so bad for her 😭

Ours does this sometimes, usually late summer (ie now), and I've just taken him to the vet about it because it gets to the self-harming sort of level after a while. No flea evidence on him but he's clearly being itchy - vet says it'll be allergy/sensitivity to something or other in the environment - so he gets a steroid shot that makes him less itchy and it settles down after a few days for a month or two.

Thanks so much, that's interesting to hear that your cat over grooms at this time of year. Going to the vet today so will query a steroid injection to help with itching/irritated skin.

It might be "hotspots", similar to ones dogs get? Excessively itchy skin, which can be seasonal allergies. Lots of dog owners use shallow Epsom salt baths if it's on paws. That might be worth trying, if you can maybe use a wet cloth? I think you'd need to make sure you washed it all off though, and it would take a few applications I imagine..

What do you feed her? We had a similar problem with our oldest, did some reading and changed her diet. We were using Felix AGAIL, changed to food with more meat and less crap in it, problem resolved. We now avoid anything with a huge percentage of animal derivatives, which is most of the mainstream stuff, Felix, whiskas, Purina most own brands.

If the vet rules out anything physical and thinks it's stress, you could try one of the pheromone plug ins like Feliway. Plus I've had good results for stress with Zylkene; open the capsule & sprinkle it on food, mine actually seem to like the taste & look on it as seasoning!

We had a period of this, I stopped using cleaning product on hard floor (steamed instead) and it helped but in the end it was vet visit, injection of antihistamines and steroid

Thanks all for your comments and suggestions. Much appreciated will definitely try some of those recommendations.

My cat used to do this, she had lovely looking skin but would make the insides of her back legs completely ballad. Turns our she had a allergy to house dust mites, changing her bedding helped a lot and not allowing her to sleep on carpets/beds/sofas. Although is was hard to do that, I just ended up with vetbed on everything as she loved it and would always sleep on it. Also it can be washed at high temperatures.