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The litter tray

Join our community of cat lovers on the Mumsnet Cat forum for kitten advice and help with cat behaviour.

Hairballs

5 replies

LadyBlakeneysHanky · 06/12/2025 09:39

Cat has been sick 3 times in the past fortnight & each time is bring up just hair. (He seems fine in himself, usual high spirits, eating etc - though maybe drinking more than usual.)

I give him Scrumbles hairball treats every day (with slippery elm I think) and brush him with a defurminator every day (not too much as I know they can be easily over used). I have been doing this routine for the past 9 months or so & the recent upsets are the first problem.

Is there anything else I could be doing? Maybe a different sort of brush? Or another hairball treatment? I worry about both him and my poor carpets.

OP posts:
Glittertwins · 06/12/2025 09:51

Not a lot seems to help our floofy one. We get through a lot of carpet cleaning stuff (plus professionally done) if we don’t spot the retching in time to get her out the door.

Allergictoironing · 06/12/2025 12:18

You can get anti hairball dry food (mine love the Royal Canin one) plus I gather the pastes are quite effective.

If he's an indoor only cat, grow a little dish of cat grass & put that by the feeding station.

LadyBlakeneysHanky · 06/12/2025 12:26

Thank you! It sounds as though there are no easy answers. Just wish I could train him to do it on a bathmat or something!

OP posts:
TalulahJP · 06/12/2025 12:59

My cat was like this. I thought it was just the central heating making her moult more. She was sick three times a week.

But I took her to the vet with a urine sample and it turned out she had a uti and it was making her feel crap so she was making herself sick to try and make herself feel better. I had no idea.

Id ask the vet for a urine sample container. Or see if your pharmacy could give you one (white top not red top as it has to be empty and not have people urine preserving crystals in it!! )

The way you get a at urine sample is to buy special plastic cat litter than doesnt absorb pee called KatKor (other brands are available), clean the tray thoroughly and put this stuff in and wait til she pees.

Then after she goes as it’s all sloshing round the tray and you can suck it up into a small pipette or syringe or pour it into a sample container. Just keep an eye on her to try and get it as soon as you can so it’s not lying all day.

Or wait till she starts to pee and if there is room put a small container (I use a baking scoop from Ikea 50p or somethimg as it had a handle to reach under her tail end) into the urine stream and take a few scoops.

Keep it in the fridge if you cannot get to the vet immediately but try the same day, sooner the better. My vet lets me hand in a sample whoever and phones with results and a link to pay. The do a dipstick it and look under a microscope as sometimes infections dont show up with a dipstick.

Ive got her on antibiotics and only once furball in 7 days, which seems about right for her.

uti and kidney probs are very common in cats. The fact yours is drinking more sounds like thats what it could be so I’d get kitty checked out. Even if you hand in the sample with a view to bringing the cat in later if anything shows up.

The dipstick / microscope check can be between a tenner and thirty quid depending on where you are.

Glittertwins · 06/12/2025 14:15

Ours at least does head to the door to get out to be sick/get rid of furball.

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