Cat first time having blood and mucus in poop

[Russianmix]

I have a 3 year old cat who just today strained a bit to go poop that had a bit of blood (bright red) and mucus in it. She's indoor, hasn't changed food too recently. Acting normal, full of energy. She left a little, maybe pea sized spot of goo (not sure if mucus or mushy poop) with blood next to the litterbox. She's had problems with constipation in the past, but this time the stool looked mostly soft. The spot with blood seemed to have a good amount of hair in it too, some of which I think was mine (I have long hair, which often winds up on the floor, and I have a bad habit of twisting loose hairs into balls; looks like she may have eaten a little ball of it). Is this something I should worry about? I plan to take her to the vet tomorrow regardless, but I'm hoping a one off case like this isn't likely serious...and is it possible that eating human hair caused it? I couldn't find any info about such a thing online.

 

[AmyFluffyMom]

Call vet ASAP

 

[AmyFluffyMom]

Oops sorry I didn’t read the whole post. It is possible that the hair or fur all can block intestines.this can cause a loss of blood to the organ. If she is acting ok that’s a good sign.

 

[AmyFluffyMom]

Here are some articles

 

[Russianmix]

Update: Took her to the vet yesterday. She had a rectal exam and they took a poop sample, no problems found other than that she was full of poop (went later that day though). Vet said she probably was constipated and strained too hard. We started giving her 1/8 teaspoon of miralax once per day three days ago, and today she's had a few mild bouts of mushy poop. Seems like our girl has a tricky tummy, so I guess we'll keep experimenting, and maybe try every other day. Any ideas here are welcome...we gave her some pumpkin as well, so I wonder if the extra fiber could have caused the trouble too. She's always been on a wet food only diet, fyi, though she does have a couple crunchy treats every day.

 

[stephanietx]

If you're feeding dry food, switch to all canned or mostly canned with crunchies as treats. Add in a little bit of plain canned pumpkin to the wet food. Also, you can mix in a little bit of water to the wet food to increase water intake which helps soften stools.

 

[35 year catdad]

Same thing was happening to my female cat from ages 12-18 off and on and it freaked me out!
Now that shes 19 she hasn't had any blood at all in her stool in past year or so and I think it was the dry food I was feeding her (1/3 of her diet then)
It was Taste of The Wild dry and I think it had oat bran it- or another irritant? Now I feed her 90%wet food and the dry food is Wysong UT diet.
Also feed Wysong Geriatrix to her boyfriend who is 14 now with no health issues ever. He gets about 3/4 wet 1/4 dry.
Her stool with the blood was not real dry and I noticed no straining to go...so it wasnt constipation but too much of the wrong fiber?
Vet said everything looked normal (not anemic) etc and they could do more tests but I found the answer and so relieved it was not serious. Best of luck!