For those lucky enough to have been groomed personally by their cat will have noted a cat’s tongue is unlike our own. The surface of the cat’s tongue is covered by projections called papillae. In the middle of the tongue, the papillae are large, spiny and point towards the back of the mouth. When your cat grooms their coat, they will naturally ingest a small amount of the fur that they lick.

The amount of hair ingested is actually fairly minimal and is mostly passed naturally in faeces. However, sometimes the hair that remains in the stomach forms a big matted knot, which is what we know as a hairball. Hairballs can be quite rm and hard if they have formed over a long period of time, and can potentially cause a blockage within your cat’s digestive tract or intestine. A hairball in your cat’s vomit will generally be sausage-shaped rather than round, and normally dark in colour.

Most cats will form a hairball at some stage of their lives. Cats that over-groom are particularly at risk of problematic hairballs and long-haired cats are likely to develop hairballs more regularly than short-haired breeds. A problem can potentially develop if your cat has a hairball in their stomach or intestine but is unable to regurgitate it themselves. It is thought that grass eating in cats can be connected to being able to regurgitate hairballs and is actually a good thing and something that your cat simply knows is necessary now and then, so if you nd your cat eating grass and later vomiting, don’t be too distressed!