Smokey is eating his hair. HELP !

I just noticed that my cat Smokey, 11 years old, is pulling his hair out and eating it. He is pulling real hard to get it out. I have noticed some long hairballs lately. He is a very laid back cat. He has feline leukemia but he is eating and acts fine otherwise , except that for several months now , he is incontinent, but he is pretty good about laying on his pee-pads. We took him to the vet for that and he gave him anibiotics but it didn't help.
Does anybody have any idea why he pulls his hair out and eats it?

 

Have you tried to call your vet to see if they know what can cause this behaviour? My cat will eat the hair that comes of when I brush him, if I let him get to it. But he never pulls it out himself...

 

You can't just call the vet, they always want you to bring in your cat and then check all kinds of things, and then you get the bill. We took him in for the incontinence, that's the way it was. But he still pees in his sleep. We are dealing with it. Will have to deal with this new problem too since he doesn' really seem sick and he always spits it up. It might be more a psycological problem, they probably couldn't tell me what's wrong with Smokey.

 

Hi. Sorry about your cat pulling out his fur. I pretty much agree with what this link says (below). Just click on 'fur pulling'. The vet here has good advice. Good luck and I wish him all the best.

http://www.vetinfo4cats.com/cathair.htm ... 0out%20fur

 

Great link Chessmind. Lots of good info

 

That was really good advice, thank you. It was very interesting. It could be fleas but he had them off and on his whole life and he never did anything like that. The flea medicine is so expensive though, especially when you have 2 cats and a big dog that we let into the house for a while every day. I have sprayed the house with flea spray, which is very good. I am going to watch Smokey for a while. Otherwise he seems to be doing fine, he is such a good cat.

 

Smokey is doing fine

Now it's 3 months later and Smokey is doing pretty good. He looks a little worse for wear, must have pulled hair from his upper tail, but I hope it will grow back when it gets colder. He always had such a fluffy tail.
He hardly pees anymore either.And his feline leukemia must be in remission (at least I hope so ). I've been catering to him and spoiling him and buying him treats. He got really close to me, I think he is enjoying all that attention.
He's actually pretty active and alert.
I hope we'll have him for along time to come.

 

I'm glad your kitty seems to be doing well and hope he continues.

When you talked about you kitty pulling at his fur, the only thing I could think of was maybe he is trying to pull mats out of his fur. I'll have to check out chessmind's link.

 

Smokey is doing great.

I am happy to say that Smokey is doing great. I took him to the Vet today because he looked kind of puny. The Vet said for a cat having leukemia he is doing exceptionally well, the problem with him pulling his hair is allergies, so he gave him a cortisone shot, that should make his hair come back. It also will make him eat more because he was getting skinny. Right now he is a little restless, must be from the shot.
Well, we'll just have to see how it's gonna go.
I was just worried about him.

 

Big hugs to Smokey! :m10: