Why Is My Cat Throwing Up Hairballs?

A hairball is a mat of hair that has blocked your cat's digestive tract and must be expelled. Hairballs are a common byproduct of cats' fastidious grooming. Hairballs are unpleasant but treatable and preventable.

  1. Causes of Hairballs

    • Your cat regularly licks herself clean from the top of her head to the tip of her tail. In the process, she swallows a lot of dead, loose fur. As a carnivore, her body is designed to eliminate any fur she eats through her stool. The body does not digest fur; it just passes through. Excess fur, however, can gather in the stomach or small intestine and form a thick mat or ball, which may block the normal digestive process. When this happens, your cat will hack and retch and vomit up a hairball. They can be very large and may be accompanied by food or digestive fluids. This is not respiratory; your cat is not coughing. Some cats with very long hair, sensitive stomachs or underlying health conditions may be prone to hairballs.

    Diet

    • Added fiber in your cat's diet can help keep food and hair moving through your cat's digestive tract, minimizing the opportunity for mats to form. Commercial cat foods are available is high fiber varieties; in fact, many manufacturers make hairball control formula cat food. Also, cats like to nosh on cat grass--a little tray of grass that grows easily indoors.

    Oils

    • Commercially available hairball control products contain inedible oils. These are flavored so your cat will take them more readily. Petroleum jelly administered on you cat's elbow once a day lubricates the digestive tract without being digested, and the hair passes through more easily. Edible oils like olive oil, fish oil and others may have other health benefits because of the fatty acids and antioxidants they contain, but they won't help with hairballs because your cat's digestive system will absorb them too fast.

    Brushing

    • According to the ASPCA, daily brushing decreases the amount of hair ingested. Two sided brushes have a pin side to brush out thick dead hair close to your cat's skin and a soft side to whisk away loose surface hair. The use of grooming mitts, gloves with a bumpy rubber palm to brush out dead hair while you pet your cat, also makes your cat's self-grooming easier.

    Considerations

    • If your cat gets frequent hairballs, tries to vomit but nothing comes up, or seems to have a true cough rather than the retching associated with hairballs, some other underlying health concern may be developing. These possibilities range from digestive impaction (something stuck in your cat's digestive tract that required medical attention), to asthma to cancer.