What Keeps a Cat From Shedding?

Cats shed dead hair naturally throughout their lives. To avoid your cat getting its loose hair all over your home, you need to take steps to groom it regularly and feed it a high-quality diet to reduce its shedding. This not only helps you keep your home hair-free, but it also prevents your cat from ingesting the hair when grooming and suffering from hairballs due to the build up of hair in its stomach.

  1. Brushing

    • Brush your cat with a slicker brush daily to remove the hair from the cat's thick undercoat to prevent shedding. Use this type of brush on cats with all lengths of fur. For cats with mats on the coat, use a special mat breaker brush to break up and remove the mat from the coat before using the slicker brush. While brushing, spray some leave-in conditioner into the cat's coat to moisturize the skin and coat, which helps reduce shedding. Wipe away any excess hair not caught with the brush using a damp wash cloth or cat bath wipe.

    Bathing

    • Bathing your cat reduces loose fur and mats on the coat, as well as removes any parasites, such as fleas. To bathe your cat, simply use a gentle baby soap or one specially formulated for cats. Place your cat in a kitchen sink or bathtub and wet its fur with warm water. Lather a small amount of shampoo into the coat and rinse it out thoroughly. To further reduce shedding, rub a conditioning rinse through the coat, rinse and spray a leave-in conditioner on the fur. This moisturizes the fur and skin, reducing the amount of hair that will spread through your home. Dry your cat with a towel and use a soft-bristle brush to remove any remaining loose hair and keep the coat healthy and shiny.

    Nutrition

    • Improve the condition of your cat's coat from the inside out with a healthy diet. Feed your cat a high-quality canned cat food to keep its skin well-hydrated and moist, which improves the condition of your cat's coat and decreases shedding. Provide your cat with special supplements containing both omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids in its food. Salmon oil and flax seed oil can both improve your cat's coat with 1/2 to 1 tsp. added to its food every day, or you can give your cat a salmon oil capsule by mouth daily. The oil will also reduce itchy, dry skin.

    Considerations

    • Most cats enjoy being brushed, and you can use it as an opportunity to bond with your cat and inspect its coat and skin for health issues. Brush slowly and gently, building up to at least a few minutes of brushing per day to reduce your cat's shedding. Check for bald patches, a dry coat and excessive shedding while grooming your cat; these symptoms may indicate an underlying illness, allergy, skin infection or parasites. Take your cat to a veterinarian for a checkup to diagnose any of these conditions. Keep stress in your home to a minimum as stress can cause excessive shedding in your cat, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.