Hairballs are no fun for cat parents, but they are also not fun for cats. Imagine a clump of hair stuck in your digestive system and struggling to get it out. If your kitty gets hairballs on the regular, it’s time to check out the diet and get to the root of the issue.
2 Main Reasons Your Kitty Gets Hairballs
Aside from excessive shedding (which comes from an unhealthy coat), there are two common issues with commercially processed cat food that lead to unnecessary hairballs. This can sometimes stem from canned foods but is almost always directly related to kibble only diets.
- Rendered ingredients. When manufacturers make your cat’s food they put it through a process called rendering. This is where they take poor quality ingredients and heat them to a very high temperature to kill unwanted pathogens. Because the digestibility of low-quality, rendered ingredients is poor, our kitties have a hard time processing this food. Ingredients like this can also cause inflammation within our cat’s GI tract, leading to even more digestive problems. Basically, rendered ingredients essentially abuse our cat’s digestive system – making it harder for ingested hair to pass through. This will inevitably result in more hairballs.
- Grains and Carbohydrates. Did you know that felines have no nutritional requirement for grains or carbs in their diet? All dry kibble foods contain a high amount of carbohydrates – even if it’s not listed on the bag. Non grain-free foods also contain high amounts of grains in the ingredients. Since our cats aren’t designed to ingest these ingredients, their digestive systems are overworked trying to process them. The result? Hairballs.
To help cut back on the hairball problems in your household, try transitioning your cat to a quality, moisture-rich diet. For added benefits, add some digestive enzymes into this moist food to help improve overall digestion and aid in repairing any damage the kibble diet might have caused. 🙂
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