As cats spend a great part of their day cleaning, they end up swallowing large quantities of hairs. Those hairs form a ball in the cats’ stomach, which they will have to regurgitate.
Most of the time, this is completely harmless for the cat, but sometimes a ball stays stuck in its throat. Unless you do everything to prevent the formation hair balls.
Brush you catThere’s no way you should try preventing a cat from cleaning. But what you can do is to brush him regularly. Long haired and moulding cats should be brushed on daily basis. This important, as all the hairs you remove, are hairs he will not swallow.
To help a hair ball through the digestive tractYou should feed your cat a spoon of paraffin oil mixed in its usual food, for three days. There’s another possibility: put a laxative paste on its paw or lips. These measures are useful if your cat is moulding, or if you have the feeling that he can’t swallow a hair ball (he tries to vomit, no but hair comes out).
To help your cat vomit the hair ballThere again, you can help him by feeding him catnip, once in a month. (You can buy this plant at your local florist’s.) This plant has vomiting effects.
The way you feed your cat is important tooTo limit the formation of hair balls, and help their digestion,, you can feed your cat specially designed food (ask your veterinarian for advice) or feed him fish cooked in oil. Last possibility: if your cat makes obstrusive hair balls, take him to your veterinarian, who will be able to give him the proper medication.
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