Why does the kitten have icicles?

A cat's fur is one of the indicators of its health and proper maintenance. The beautiful, smooth, shiny coat of a pet is the pride of the owner, especially if it participates in exhibitions.

The appearance of mats (matted dense balls of hair) indicates insufficient daily care or other problems for the pet. More often, cats of long-haired breeds (Persian, Maine Coon, Neva Masquerade, Turkish Angora, Siberian, Burmese, Norwegian Forest) suffer from this, since these animals cannot fully care for their thick and long hair. In cats of short-haired breeds, tangles can appear when sticky or adhesive substances come into contact with the fur: resin, varnish, paint, etc.

What are mats?

Mats are dense clumps of matted old wool. Young cats lick themselves constantly. Thus, they remove old fallen hairs, preventing the appearance of tangles.

Old or sick cats sometimes cannot maintain such hygiene. The fur begins to weave, tangle, and dense clumps appear. However, even young cats are not always able to prevent the appearance of mats.

Reasons for the appearance of tangles

This problem is associated with long hair. More often, mats appear in Persian cats or breeds similar to them. In shorthaired dogs, dense lumps appear extremely rarely. Then this indicates that the animal is sick. Reasons why a cat's fur gets matted :

It is impossible for an animal to get rid of old or falling hairs on its own. The cause is too thick hair.
Depressed state of the cat. In this state, she does not do enough personal hygiene.
A number of diseases. These could be dermatological problems, oral pathologies, cancerous tumors, etc.
Vitamin deficiency, which leads to disruption of metabolic processes in the animal's body. As a result, dandruff may appear, and it sticks the hairs together even more tightly.
Skin parasites. Lice or lice eaters cause cats to lick their fur even more often. As a result of large amounts of saliva coming into contact with it, wet lumps are formed.
Wool contamination. For example, when an animal gets dirty with glue, petroleum, oils, etc.
Wrong food choices.
Poor animal care.

Mats can form even if your cat is not bathed properly. For example, if shampoos intended for humans are used, improper soaping, rinsing and drying of the animal. After water procedures, the fur can only be blotted with a towel; you cannot rub the cat in order to dry it faster.

Symptoms of the disease

A disease such as “greasy tail syndrome” has the following symptoms:

The appearance of greasy hair at the base of the animal's tail.
Clumping of fur into tangles.
Accumulation on the skin of an animal of a waxy mass of brown color, giving off a rancid odor,
Redness and inflammation of the skin underneath the oily hair on the tail.
Inflammation of the hair follicles and the appearance in their place of small pustules in huge numbers.
Hair loss is common.
The appearance of scabs.

Danger of tangles

For a cat, the appearance of mats causes not only discomfort. Dense lumps pull on healthy hairs that accidentally get there. When moving, the cat feels pain. Sometimes quite strong. Trying to get rid of lumps, he may even injure himself with his claws or teeth. Such wounds then heal for a very long time. Other dangers of hairballs :

The appearance of mats is not just an unaesthetic appearance of a cat. Lumps can cause a number of diseases.
Cats try to lick mats. As a result, matted lumps become wet from saliva. This is a good environment for various parasites and microbes to appear and multiply.
Under the furball, the animal's skin begins to swell very much. As a result, dermatological diseases also appear.
Another reason why you need to get rid of tangles faster is accidental injury to the animal. This can happen during play if the lump gets caught on objects or furniture. The cat will try to get rid of the obstacle and will begin to escape. This could result in serious injury.

This may be further associated with pain and fear. Then the cat will begin to resist if the owner tries to remove the matted hairballs. If you don’t get rid of tangles, then every day there will be more and more of them. As a result, strong moisture will begin to accumulate under the fur, and this is fraught with the appearance of ulcers and inflammation.

The cat is 17 years old, the fur is stuck together on her back!

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How to remove tangles

What to do if your cat has mats? They must be removed immediately upon discovery. Check the abdominal area around the paws, armpits and neck more often. Hairballs appear there first due to the animal's movements.

If the tangles have appeared recently, you can untangle them with your hands. Each lump is separated by hairs; you can simply stir it with your fingers. Then walk with a comb or a special brush from the back to the stomach and paws - from top to bottom.

When the tangles have already started and do not respond to this method, then the presence of a second person during the procedure is desirable. While one is engaged in removing lumps, the other will hold and calm the animal.

If it is impossible to comb the tangles, they are cut off. This must be done very carefully. First, the lump is cut with a knife or scissors, but so as not to damage the skin. Then you need to slowly untangle the fur with your hands and comb it out. This method will help preserve as much of your luxurious fur coat as possible.

When a cat has tangles, you can use a special device - a tangle cutter. This is a comb with sharp blades. Using a mat cutter helps to significantly reduce damage to an animal's coat.

However, fur that has matted into large clumps can only be removed with a haircut or in a grooming salon. For the procedure, scissors with not very sharp tips or a machine with a nozzle of 2 mm are used. When removing mats, the animal must be held firmly. The skin should be taut when cutting. The head, tail and paws are cut separately.

The procedure for removing mats can be carried out several times, otherwise the cat will experience severe stress and depression will begin. You cannot buy an animal until all lumps have been removed. After cutting, an antistatic agent is used. This will help prevent new tangles from appearing.

Not all owners can cope with lumps that fit tightly to the animal’s skin. It is better not to risk your pet’s health and take it to a veterinary clinic. After removing the tangles, doctors will recommend care products and give other recommendations.

Treatment of the disease

If the appearance of greasy hair on a cat's tail is an isolated case (the animal is simply dirty), then the cat, of course, does not need treatment. It should be washed well.

If you experience greasy coat syndrome, you should seek help from specialists who will need to select remedies to eliminate the cause of the disease.

First of all, the animal will be prescribed a course of vitamin therapy , which will help normalize the functioning of the sebaceous and perianal glands of the cat. One of the effective drugs in this case is Hokamix-30 .

Prevention of tangles

Mats in cats are often caused by poor grooming. Owners do not think when they take a long-haired kitten into their home that they will need to be brushed daily. There are even special home devices sold for this purpose.

To avoid tangles, your cat needs proper coat care.:

The animal needs to be combed daily. If the coat is not very thick and long, then 2-3 times a week.
When bathing, use special shampoos that prevent hair tangling. The product is applied with stroking movements in the direction of hair growth. When drying, simply pet the cat several times with a dry towel.
Purchase special antistatic agents for animals. The product must be selected taking into account the breed of the cat, the thickness and length of the coat.
You can dry the animal with a hairdryer. This will prevent the formation of wet clumps and make combing easier.

In addition to the above, prevention of mats in cats includes a proper diet. The animal needs balanced food and vitamin supplements that improve the quality of the coat.

To prevent infection by parasites, you need to buy special preparations and carry out regular treatment. The cat's body should be examined 2-3 times a week. Remove small pellets and dirt. In hot weather, the animal can be trimmed a little.

So that the cat does not resist when combing, it must be accustomed to the procedure from childhood. The hygiene device must be selected taking into account the thickness and length of the coat. If it continues to clump, then the cat needs treatment.

How to comb matted fur on a cat

Tangles do not give the animal a very pleasant sensation. You will learn where they come from and how to deal with them by reading this article.

Where do pets get mats in their fur? From dirt. Only unkempt, dirty fur is matted. The pet develops itching on the skin under the matted fur. As a result, the cat itches, the hairs become even more tangled, and the mat increases in size.

If the cat’s skin is clean, then the shedding process occurs naturally: the hairs slip off and fall unhindered to the floor, but when the cat’s fur is dirty, shedding proceeds differently: the greasy hairs stick together and a mat forms.

Regular combing of an animal's dirty fur will not help in this case; the hairs will continue to tangle. As a result, the cat will completely lose its downy undercoat.

To rid your cat of mats, you first need to determine the severity of the situation.

If the hairs on your back and thighs are completely matted, then you won’t be able to get by with half measures. There is only one way out - to cut the cat’s hair with a special clipper.

But, if the mats are small, any cat owner can easily deal with them, without even needing any tips. If there are not many tangles, but they are quite large, then you should use our advice:

Use a special spray (if you don’t have a spray, you can replace it with ordinary nail polish remover). Moisten the mat with spray. You should not use a large amount of solvent; it is only necessary to saturate the tangle. The solvent will help remove dirt and grease;

Let the spray dry a little;

Now you can start sorting out the tangled fur.

The most difficult thing is to force the cat not to move and wait until the procedure is completed. In general, cats really don’t like it when mats are torn apart, so most often they loudly protest with plaintive cries, or bite and scratch. If you cannot cope with the situation on your own, but the mat still needs to be removed, you cannot do without an assistant. One person will lay the cat on its side and hold it by the paws, while the other person will quickly remove the mats. It is necessary to be patient, since the cat will not tolerate the procedure for a long time, and, therefore, it will have to be performed in several stages.

We recommend reading: Parasites of Cats Photo This

If the tangle is too dense, then with the help of nail scissors it is cut in several places, and only then they begin to disassemble it. Once you have removed all the tangled hair, the cat should be combed with a special slicker brush or a fine-toothed comb.

If a cat has long hair, it needs regular bathing using special products. When a cat's fur is clean, tangles will not form on it.

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The most difficult thing is to force the cat not to move and wait until the procedure is completed. In general, cats really don’t like it when mats are torn apart, so most often they loudly protest with plaintive cries, or bite and scratch. If you cannot cope with the situation on your own, but the mat still needs to be removed, you cannot do without an assistant. One person will lay the cat on its side and hold it by the paws, while the other person will quickly remove the mats. It is necessary to be patient, since the cat will not tolerate the procedure for a long time, and, therefore, it will have to be performed in several stages.

Why do they appear and how to remove tangles from a cat?

Often, owners of long-haired pets are faced with such an unpleasant phenomenon as mats in their cats. Fluffy mustaches are distinguished by their affectionate nature, peaceful disposition and delight the human eye with a beautiful fur coat that requires special care. The long and fluffy fur of pets needs to be protected and cherished, combed regularly, bathed with a special shampoo, and if necessary, use cat spray. Otherwise, the hair falls off, it becomes impossible to comb out the dense icicles, and all that remains is to trim the cat, which will immediately affect the pet’s well-being and appearance.

Wet felting technique

Wet felting from wool allows you to create a dense, thick material - felt. You will need:

wool;
felting base;
alkaline solution;
bubble film.

In this case, the basis for felting can be a bamboo napkin. An alkaline solution is prepared from soap, which improves the adhesion of flakes of different wool fibers. This method of making crafts is much safer than dry felting.

Wool fibers are laid out on the base in several layers. In this case, the fibers of each next layer should be laid out perpendicular to the fibers of the previous one. Having moistened the woolen layout with soapy water, the needlewoman covers it with bubble wrap and rubs it with her hands. You can twist the bamboo napkin as you work. When the fibers no longer separate from each other, the felt can be considered ready. It is rinsed with clean water and sent to dry in a warm place.

After drying, the canvas decreases in size by 25-30%. In this way, paintings, clothes, hats, scarves and felt accessories are created. Using the wet felting method, patterns and designs made from multi-colored wool can be applied to felt. Warm clothes were made in this way many centuries ago.

You can find all the necessary materials and tools in craft stores. Wide range of choices exist in online stores.

What is it: how to recognize pellets?

In the coat of cats, a regeneration process is constantly taking place; the coat has the ability to renew itself and get rid of old hairs, which must be urgently removed by combing. If this is not done, the fallen hairs become entangled with the growing ones, tangles appear that are almost impossible to comb out, since such a procedure will cause severe physical pain to the pet. In this case, the pet’s owners will have no choice but to cut out the matted fur. As a rule, matting of pile with the formation of dense clumps in long-haired cats is observed in the neck, “pants”, tail, but can often be found on the back, stomach and the entire body of the animal.

A short-haired cat is much less likely to experience pellets in its fur. But if the pet is not provided with normal care, the cat is not bathed, its coat becomes dirty in the same way, the hair rolls off, tangles appear, which are no easier to remove than in the Persian.

Features of this disease

According to statistics, such a disease most often occurs in uncastrated cats; in their castrated counterparts it occurs much less frequently.

Hyperplasia of the perianal gland leads to the fact that a huge amount of secretion accumulates in excess on the cat’s skin, which gets onto the whiskered fur and contaminates it, giving it, in turn, a very greasy appearance.

In non-castrated animals, this disease also occurs in representatives of non-furry breeds, but fluffy-tailed ones are more susceptible to it.

This disease is specific to such breeds of the cat family as:

Causes: where do they come from?

It is easier to protect your pet from skin problems than to treat serious consequences later, because when the fur becomes tangled, it is not only a spoiled appearance of the cat, but there are also many reasons that lead to serious illnesses for the pet. Sometimes a long-haired cat is simply not able to take care of the condition of its lush hair on its own, so the owner is obliged to help the pet in this difficult matter by providing regular care.

Causes of tangles in short-haired and long-haired cats:

Poor nutrition. Poorly selected food causes an imbalance in the gastrointestinal tract of animals, which leads to skin problems and dandruff, which directly affects the condition of the coat.
Poorly organized bathing. Many owners bathe cats with cosmetic shampoos, not realizing that preparations with specific fragrances are dangerous for the cat’s fragile coat.
Pollution factor. Matted fur may indicate the presence of dirt on the animal's coat, which the mustache cannot remove on its own.
Presence of parasites. The first sign that fleas or lice have appeared in a cat's hair is dull, brittle hair that has rolled up and formed tight tangles. Simply cutting off the pellets will not work; treatment is already needed.

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Complications

Fatty particles of dead epithelium are noticeable in the highly shiny coat. And if you don’t look for the reason, the animal’s appearance will be neglected and unkempt. This disease signals problems in the body: leukemia virus, systemic lupus erythematosus, chronic liver disease, drug rash.

An untreated disease also leads to hair loss.

Seborrhea, as a cause of skin peeling, can easily be transmitted from one cat to another, which will also not make owners happy. Therefore, there is no place for thinking here - treat and treat again.

Black dandruff in cats

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If the dandruff suddenly turns out to be black, and the color of the animal is also black, you should not calm down, this is not the norm. Particles of peeling skin can be light gray, cream, white, but if they are black, then there is a fungal disease or the presence of parasites in the body.

The cat has dandruff and hair loss

Yesterday my cat was diagnosed with dandruff, and today we noticed that she was shedding a lot of hair - yes, this happens. A cat with dandruff sheds much more, and can even get bald spots from actively trying to scratch its itchy skin.

The veterinarian will give a conclusion whether the cause is parasites, fungus or poor nutrition. In the first two cases, adequate medications will be prescribed, and nutrition will need to be adjusted at home. If the cat ate dry food, then you will have to choose a different type of food for it.

Stray dandruff in a cat

In addition to the usual dandruff, cats also have so-called wandering dandruff, which is caused by the Cheyletiella mite. The disease itself is called cheyletiellosis. The disease, unlike the word, is completely unsightly and extremely contagious for all pets with fur. The mite calmly moves in the keratin layer of the skin, so the dandruff itself, which covers the fur in a thick layer, also moves after the mite. Cheyletiellosis in cats is not difficult to identify: the tick itself can be seen with a good magnifying glass, and the fur looks like a battlefield: there are tracks on the skin everywhere along with a thick rash of skin scales.

Treatment of cheyletiellosis begins with cleaning with a vacuum cleaner, or better yet, with a steam generator, all the nooks and crannies of the home, with washing all bedding, rugs, and carriers. Then the cat begins to be bathed daily using sulfur-based preparations and even includes standard insecticides in the treatment.

Long-haired sufferers are recommended to have their hair cut for a speedy recovery.

How to get rid of it: quick help for your pet

If the cat is provided with regular care and the animal's thick hair is regularly combed, then it is not difficult to detect a dense mat. Even with simple stroking, a dense formation is felt under the hand among the smooth coat. Removing clumps is an unpleasant procedure for both the cat and the pet owner. However, the mandatory nature of the process is not discussed, because if you do not untangle the tangled fur in time and do not rid your pet of annoying lumps, then an unplanned haircut for the cat is guaranteed.

Take your time

Do not try to remove the entire tangle at once, but cut it off in several stages, starting with the densest and most “inconvenient” formations and ending with simple and small ones.

We suggest you read: How to switch a cat to another food? Is it possible to change my cat's dry food? How to properly switch a cat to food from another company?

You can deal with tangles that are located even in accessible places, but how can you remove tangles on a cat’s stomach? After all, not every cat even allows you to stroke this tender spot. You need to act in the same way as when removing other tangles, but more carefully. The work may take several days, especially if the cat is restless.

Why they are dangerous: hidden dangers for animals

Hairballs that seem harmless at first glance can cause significant harm to your beloved pet. The games of kittens and adults are very exciting; while playing, a cat can get caught in a tangle on a foreign object and injure itself with a thoughtless jerk. Such a moment will be forever imprinted in the mustache’s memory and the animal will no longer allow you to touch its fur. If we delve deeper into the topic, tangles are not a disease and do not pose a direct risk to the life of the animal. However, the reasons that encourage you to remove and deal with unkempt fur are quite valid:

ugly looking cat;
discomfort for the animal;
formation of dandruff and diaper rash on the skin;
the possibility of wounds and ulcers;
a favorable environment for the development of parasites, fungi and harmful microorganisms.

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Products, cosmetics and methods for care

A greasy tail is not aesthetically pleasing and can lead to unpleasant consequences. Regular cleansing of fur and skin from secretions improves their condition. The following are suitable for treating problem areas:

Special pastes based on degreasers.
Shampoo from a veterinary pharmacy.
Food starch.
Cosmetic toning products.

Baby powders.
Household chemicals.
Human shampoos.
Any creams.

It is not advisable to use balms and masks locally. They clog pores, creating a favorable environment for bacteria to multiply. Also, Maine Coon owners and groomers avoid aggressive products due to increased sebum production.

Pastes give a long-term effect. It is better to choose a product from a professional line of trusted brands that is suitable for coons. They are carefully applied with a brush to the base, after 5-10 minutes they are thoroughly washed off with warm water. Pastes are used before soaping with shampoo. White Maine Coons need tinting agents, because wool of this color fades even after treatment.

A comb with wide metal teeth is an indispensable assistant in caring for fairly thick hair. The tail of a purebred animal cannot peel off due to this, unless there are other reasons.

Prevention measures: how to avoid?

It is much easier to protect your beloved animal from possible problems with its fur than to later eliminate problems in its history. Moreover, precautionary rules must be observed from the very birth of the kitten; newborn long-haired pets are also at risk of developing mats. To prevent the hair from matting and the cat to have a beautiful silky coat, you need to follow a few simple rules of cat hygiene:

Brush your cat regularly, at least 3 times a week, preferably every day. Use a hard brush with thick teeth.
Buy a special anti-matt product, perhaps a softening shampoo or balm for bathing cats.
When bathing, do not fluff the hair, apply shampoo with light stroking movements, also foam and rinse the animal from the product.
It is recommended to dry animals with a hair dryer, this helps prevent the formation of tight lumps due to improper drying.

The functionality of the gastrointestinal tract directly affects the condition of hair in cats. If the fur sticks together, has not grown back since the last haircut, and the entire fur coat is covered in ugly icicles, this is an alarming signal about a violation of the internal organs. First of all, your pet should be shown to a veterinarian to rule out a possible disease. Cat food should be of high quality, preferably with protein supplements. It won't hurt to pamper your pet with vitamins and minerals.

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