Thread: Fur balls and yet more fur balls!

I haven't experienced this yet. I brush two or three times a week and Simba is on RC MC. Perhaps he is still too young for fur balls?

Mine haven't had furballs yet, maybe they're too young. At the moment they're on kitten kibble (Hills) supplemented with wet food once a day. But now considering the Maine Coon food for when they're older. What is the advantage to the MC food? What makes it different from an ordinary, good quality adult cat kibble? Sorry, this is a bit of a tangent.

Hi Claire,by brushing everday you could be making things worse as you will have more loose hair all the time & in fact making it a lot easier to ingest them,daughters cat was like that until she reduced the grooming,now she dreads brush time because most times fur balls follow in a couple of days but nothing like they used to.This is a bad time at the moment though,I average about six weeks before one leaves a gift then you know most of the others will follow on all except Merlyn who up to now has never had a fur ball{talked that one up no doubt} I tried the RC Intense Hairball when we had a bad period but it didn't really seem to make much difference even though they had it everyday for nearly three months I now give them RC Hair & Skin & the weird thing is since they have been on that they haven't been so bad & the furballs they do bring up are really well formed,They don't have much of the kibble because mine are mostly wet food fed & it goes on their menu about every third feed as I alternate between other dried foods,but.....! I used to feed the MC kibble but found a couple had upset tums after a while & Merl piled the weight on so now give them Hills Dental to give them the larger kibble to crunch on,I don't think there was anything in it to particularly to help with the furball situation.
What a super topic,no doubt you will hear of some great remedies & I will watch with interest to see if I can get a longer than 6wk period !

Some MCs groom a great deal and this time of year (when they are shedding) you may get some hairballs being coughed up. One of our two females is a big groomer and she has had several over the last couple of weeks (sometimes one every other day!). On the other hand, I don't think our two year old red male has had more than one hairball ever. You can get a paste to feed them which helps hair move through, made of castor oil and the like. We have a couple of brands we have used. Some cats love it and will lick it up, but others will not.

As for those with young cats...we have not had hairballs from the young cats (<1yr) as they just don't have the hair yet.

Harry has coughed a couple of times where I thought he was going to "produce a hairball" but the end result didn't match up to the wretching ! I have noticed he is constantly grooming himself at the moment. So yet another joy we "youngster" parents have to look forward too ;)

Louie has'nt had any fur-balls yet & Im not expecting any we hardly ever see him grooming himself, scruff bag that he is I think the furminator helps reduce them or you can get a paste from the vet of pet shops it looks a bit like marmite our old MC loved it

The MC food has glucosomine & omega oils in it to help keep joints & there heart healthy
Howlinbob it is also shaped for MC's jaws/teeth

No fur balls here yet, but my MCs aren't quite a year yet. It is hot here (although they are only in the AC) and they are shedding. The Furminator has helped a great deal I think. They had baths yesterday, so the fur is coming out like mad, but no fur balls yet.

My MC, who died last summer at 13, had a fur ball about once a year.

Originally Posted by mom2coons

They had baths yesterday, so the fur is coming out like mad, but no fur balls yet.

Baths? Er, am I supposed to bath them??? Eek!

We have'nt bathed Louie since he fell down the loo that time but it had been flushed & he bathed himself when he fell in the bath, good job it was'nt red hot bad luck for OH though