What is the difference between cat throw-up, and cat hairballs?

Question

It'd just be nice to distinguish the two since I have two cats.

Answer 1

cat vomit is the cat's stomach contents from eating. It vomits like a sickness..
The cat "coughs up" a hair ball. It licks itself to clean itself then gets long hairs caught together in the tummy. it has to eventually cough it up. My cat does and it is scary . they sound like they are going to die. another helpful hint:vomit will look like cat food...the hairball looks like a wad of goopy hair.
good luck

Answer 2

Hairballs have lots of matted hair in the "pile", while throw-up just has stomach contents (whatever they ate last: food, grass, milk).

There are special cat-treats for hairballs that you can buy. Most of them work to get rid of hairballs (I can't think of the brand I use right now, though).

Answer 3

The difference in my cats is the moisture content. Cause there is hair in both of them. Generally his hairballs are thicker and more in a tubular shape cause of the way it came up. His puke is generally more liquidy and kinda just make a mess from the stomach acids. You may think about giving your cat hairball control food.

Answer 4

If you take out the dead hair every day, with a grooming brush, your cat will never, ever, have hairballs. No matter what you do, however, a cat may fall sick, and throw up.

Answer 5

a hairball is a collection of hair that the cat couldn't digest, so it pukes it up. (literally a hairball).

Other throw-up just looks like regular puke.

Answer 6

When my two cats have hairballs they mostly just cough they rarely throw up. But if they do the hairballs is just... hair. But throwup is like old food, water... anything that its eaten.!

Answer 7

Throw up is usually their food that didn't go down right, and a hairball is when they lick their fur, they cough it up later.

Answer 8

The amount of liquid or moisture found in each. Hairball equals dry.

Answer 9

hairballs is mostly hair
Throw up looks like cat crap...and smells like it too..but it will have hair in it becuase what they have eaten hasnt digested

Answer 10

throwup is coughed up digested food hairballs r coughed hair/fur that the cat accidently eats from grooming