# Does eating grass necessarily induce hairball vomiting?



## genEus (Sep 7, 2004)

<-- Lawrence enjoys his oat grass (even though we grew waaay more than he can eat 8O). He comes up to it about 3-4 times a day and eats 2 or 3 full stems at a time, but I have yet to find a hairball... 

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I take a careful look at his stool once a week and I often see a lot of hair when it's broken apart.
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But, so, what's the reason he eats it? I've read before that it is for a purely mechanical use and that it's not like it tastes good, but is he just eating it for fun? :roll: 

Does anyone have experience with it?

Thanks


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## Doeremi (Aug 21, 2004)

I have this same kitty grass. Nala ate like half a stem but has since ignored it. Peekaboo doesn't know what it is. I'm killing it I think. Am I suppose to water it or not?

I looked at one website on cat grass and this is what it said about it. "Helps a cat's natural digestive system and also acts as a natural hairball remedy." 

Edit: It doesn't look like vomiting is the effect you get with this product...at least in your case it has shown that..and I certainly wouldn't want throw up everywhere every day, would you?


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## genEus (Sep 7, 2004)

Doeremi said:


> I have this same kitty grass. Nala ate like half a stem but has since ignored it. Peekaboo doesn't know what it is. I'm killing it I think. Am I suppose to water it or not?
> 
> I looked at one website on cat grass and this is what it said about it. "Helps a cat's natural digestive system and also acts as a natural hairball remedy."
> 
> Edit: It doesn't look like vomiting is the effect you get with this product...at least in your case it has shown that..and I certainly wouldn't want throw up everywhere every day, would you?


Well, it's not vomiting food - it's vomiting hairballs, which (from what I've read) are just what the name suggests, balls of hair, so it's not as horrible as if he were to vomit from being sick... But, I believe that I read even on this forum that cat grass is purely a "mechanical" thing, and that cats know that they're supposed to eat it to tickle their insides in order to cough up those hairballs... maybe I should ask mine what he thinks on the issue :lol:


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## Gudewife (Jun 27, 2004)

Well, unless the cat has a hairball he needs to dislodge, eating grass won't make him throw up a hairball. Under ideal circumstances, the hair passes through the digestive tract (undigested) and is eliminated in the stool. It's only when the wads of hair get lodged somewhere in the digestive tract that a problem occurs and the cat needs help passing the hairball.

Since Assumpta's been a wet-food only eater, she's only had one tiny hairball,  due to reduced shedding and increased moisture intake, which helps the hair slide through more easily. We're thrilled, as she's always had a major hairball problem, no matter how much I groomed her. I'm also noticing less hair in her stool and in my shed combs, so I think the diet and coat improvement have had a lot to do with it. 

Assumpta likes kitty grass, but it never seems to do much in the way of hairballs, she just likes to chomp on it. When she had her Very Bad Hairball Incident this summer, she did eat a lot of it and vomited a lot of plugs of grass, but it didn't help move the Hairball of Enormous Size, 8O which finally came up of its own accord.


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## luci (Oct 6, 2004)

My cats more or less never throw up hairballs, mostly I think because they are fairly short haired. However, the few times it has happened, has been shortly after them eating grass in the garden.

But what is oat grass? Is it different from normal green grass, because this is what is ment to work with hairball problems...??

Be careful in general, though, when I was at the vets recently, I saw a cat that had been in to get a grass stem removed. Apparantly they can get stuck, which is painful and uncomfortable for the cat. Unless the vet can get it out (sometimes they can´t due to its location), it will pass through the nose after a week or two, but causing damage to their nose in the prosess.

never experienced this myself, but according to the vet they get quite a few of these cases..


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