My cats keeps vomiting at least once a week, need advice.

[GGA1759]

Soften the hard food with water. Cats don't have the same kind of teeth as humans and can't chew food.

[Deadheadz]

My cat used to do the same thing until about a year ago. I switched him to more expensive food that has no grains or meat by-products and he RARELY will toss up his food now. Try switching him to some more expensive food (worth it, hated cleaning that up all the time). Make sure to mix in some of the old food with the new for a week or two to help him adjust to the new stuff.

[Demona3]

I own two male cats that are brothers, around 5 y/o.

I usually just feed them normal dry food and water, and canned once or twice a week as treat.

My one cat though has recently been vomiting around once a week on average, it's usually just one big clop of digested dry food.

I think this may be attributed to the fact I bought a larger cat bowl within the last year that I fill once a day and basically let them free feed, never knew until now this is a bad idea as they always stayed at normal weight, and my other cat hasn't had any issues at all.

The cat that has been vomiting weekly has also been meowing a lot more then average lately, for now I'm going to stop free feeding him and twice a day instead as I learned this can be very bad

The problem with free feeding, explains Dr. Thomas Morganti, DVM, of the Avon Veterinary Clinic in Connecticut, is that every time your cat goes for that kibble, there’s an insulin spike. The pancreas can’t handle the long-term overload, and eventually you’re looking at a cat with diabetes.

Dr. Debora Lichtenberg, VMD, has explained here at Petful that offering all-day dry food is especially problematic: “Cats conditioned to the never-ending dry buffet are at risk for developing obesity, urinary problems and kidney failure, to name just a few of the top feline health risks of a dry food diet. It would be like a human moving his recliner to a Las Vegas buffet.”

Would appreciate any thoughts on this, and whether a trip to the Vet is necessary at this moment or just stopping the free feeding should fix him up?
Thanks

We free feed our cats, it's never been an issue until recently.

Is your cat drinking a TON of water? Mainly, constantly at the water dish or seeking out water from other sources (bathtub, sink, your cup, etc)?
Has he lost weight?
Are his pupils dialated consistently?
How is his fur upkeep?
Night (or day) yowling for no reason.

Mainly I ask because I had an issue with my cat (who is 17 years old now) going through this. He would eat his food, then throw it all up. After numerous trips to vets - many different vets - every single one of them kept giving me the same stupid 3 reasons as to why he was throwing up:

1. His tastes have changed and he may not be able to digest the type of food you are buying him.

2. He is having a hard time eating hard cat food.

3. It's his age.

One of the doctors actually gave me a powder type substance stating it could be hairballs in his stomach.

Anyway, after spending hundreds of dollars on these vets, I finally found a vet that ran a complete blood test on him. Turns out, he had a thyroid issue. He currently is on prescribed food and medicine. The throwing up has stopped, but we are having issues now with getting him to actually eat the prescribed food. He's actually lost more weight. We started giving him some canned food (once a day), which has helped a little. However, now he expects the canned food ALL the time and refuses to eat the prescribed food. He's actually started stealing food from our dinner plates the second our backs are turned.

We've talked with the vet about this and the vet told us he shouldn't be eating anything else but the prescribed food. I'm incredibly worried because he is getting skinnier by the day and the constant meowing for food has become more than annoying. And I'm not talking about him just being in the kitchen with us begging for food when we are in there. He has gotten to the point to where he is waking us up in the middle of the night trying to get us to feed him.

We have another appointment next week, but I'm starting to fear the worst is about to come.

[vindicatorx]

You want advice? Go to a fucking vet.

[Zenotetsuken]

Honestly from my personal experience, I have had 2 cats with the same problem, but worse. Both times it was because of kidney problems, and the cats needed special prescription food.
I always have 2 cats, and have had to do a feeding schedule with some of my other cats in the past, and free feed the ones I have now. You will know if free feeding is the problem, because your cat vomiting won't be a once a week thing, it will usually be a daily thing. Your cat will also gain a lot of weight, and they will eat all of their food quickly, and aggressively try to get more.

From my experience, you can pretty easily tell if your cat is ok to free feed if you do this... Figure out how much food per day they should have, put that amount of food in a bowl, and check on it every few hours. If they take the whole day or near the whole day to eat the bowl of food, then they are probably fine to be free fed, but keep track for awhile to make sure of it.

If they eat all of the food right away, and come to you for more, try taking the same amount of food in a separate bowl, and every hour put a little bit in their bowl and when they are done eating it, pick back up the bowl. After doing that for a week or 2, try putting out the bowl full of food again, if they again eat all of their food right away and run out of food before the day is done, then free feeding isn't really going to be an option, and you are going to have to start a feeding schedule.


As others have said, take him to the vet, and have them do blood tests.

[Fang7986]

Go to a vet and get real advice

[khazmodan]

Dry food and water? Give me that for 3 days and ill gag aswell.
Also i suspect the majority here enjoys torturing small animals in the backyard, not the best place to ask about animal care.

Im offended by this assumption....i torture mine in the basement "IT PUTS THE LOTION ON ITS FUR OR IT GETS THE HOSE AGAIN"

[Fascinate]

6 months ago i got a cat, thing kept puking all the time. I was using the same food the cat had been eating for a year (previous owner), switched to blue buffalo indoor health and puking stopped....and the cat loves the stuff. Its more expensive but worth.

[NicoWolf]

OP; just a thought, and call me crazy for thinking this might be the way to go, but have you considered calling the local veterinarian?

I mean, I might be wrong, but somehow, MMO-Champion's Off-Topic Forum doesn't strike me as the first place one goes to for all matters serious and feline health I would imagine falls into that particular area.

Again, I could be wrong.

[General Junos]

When in doubt: call the vet and see what they say. Pretty much everyone that works at a vet's office wants your pets to be healthy, and they'll answer any question they can.

Since you're worried enough to actually post on MMOC forums, start paying close attention to the cat. Is he drinking less water? More water? Vet visit. Litter box habits change at all? Going outside the box? He going less or more? Vet visit. Not as active? Sluggish? Personality seem off? Vet visit. Gain or lose weight? Vet visit. These are also the kinds of questions they will ask you on the phone, so start paying as much attention to your cat as possible.

That aside, some bits of info from personal experience: (Don't just assume these could be the reason. Call the vet.)

All cats are different. Some take to free feeding just fine, some don't. Generally, they don't. My old vet described dry food as kitty crack - it's made in a way that cats will keep coming back to it because it's so damned addicting.

That aside, brushing may help. Depends upon whether or not fur is being puked up.

Too much food could be the issue. For example, one of my cats every so often will be nervous that another cat is going to take her food, and she will suddenly eat a lot more than normal. Later on, she'll puke it up. Sometimes she'll also eat too quickly, which will also cause her to vomit.

It could be the food itself. Your cat may have eaten the same stuff for years without a problem, but suddenly he doesn't like it anymore, or, it doesn't agree with his stomach anymore. Change of food may be necessary. Personally, I feed my cats wet food in the morning and afternoon, then a small bit of dry at night. Wet food is better for them in nearly every way.

Call the vet.

[Sunseeker]

My cat is very fluffy and often has hairballs which she cannot digest properly and thus, throws up. So you may want to look into hairball control, and yes, give them smaller amounts of food more often, instead of one big glop. Also, try to avoid foods with lots of wheat or rice in them as these expand in the stomach, like they do for any creature, but cats don't handle this well being primarily carnivores. Shit if you're rich, just find out if your cat likes turkey, beef or ham best and just buy the cheap raw meat and feed them that.

[Chetnik]

try murdering the cat and see if that helps.

[announced]

dry food is great for a cat, try a more expensive brand though not garbage like whiskas. and never leave a big pile of food there just for him to eat all at once. u need to feed them atleast twice a day usually morning/night. wet food is better for older cats that have trouble eating kibble.

if the vomit has hair in it the cat may have hairballs and thats normal for a long hair. u need to brush long hair cats once a day. short hairs vary but usually once a week is fine.
basically just brush him and dont overfeed him.
@Demona, very sad my cat was the same way. she got addicted to wet food and would only eat that afterwards. nothing else. she had kidney problems as most older cats tend to develop (14+) and eventually she got super skinny and barely moved at all, then not.

[Cerus]

Quit being a cheapskate and take the fucking cat to the vet. It ain't a PC or a tool of some kind. I will never understand these types of posts.

Vomitting is very common in cats and once a week of digested food is no reason for a vet visit.

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Appreciate everyone that took the time to reply, read all your comments.



Nope, there indoor cats but I let him outside in the backyard for a little bit and noticed grass in there, so yeah guess it was definitely the grass this time.

They've never been overweight, and I wasn't aware of the other problems that it can cause like diabetes, the one that keeps vomiting, despite being larger naturally, weights a little less than his smaller brother.



I'd take him to the Vet right away if this is definitely a reason for medical assistance as a responsible owner, but a few hundred dollar bill or whatever it may be is more than I can afford at the moment due to my current financial situation, it's not like my cats have health insurance either

Embrace Pet insurance is one of the best and is very affordable. Feed a higher quality, grain free food (preferably wet food) and do not free feed. Cats are notorious for not drinking enough water and most suffer from kidney issues later in life.

[RayenDark]

1.) I saw you let them go into the back yard does this happen the same day the cat gets sick? Cats will often throw up if they eat grass.

2.) I've 'free fed' every cat I've ever owned. None of them are over weight nor over eat. If you feed them good quality food they will get 'full' and not eat as much or as often on a lesser quality food.

3.) See and vet and make sure the poor kitty isn't having other issues like IBS or stomach ulcers.

[Cerus]

Free feeding? Our cats have had 24/7 buffet for 30 years, none of them have been fat or sick. We've had like 15 cats in our family during that time.

Most peoples idea of a healthy dog or cat is still too fat. They should have a very defined waist and stomach tuck. Looking from the side they should not be a rectangular shape. Just because they don't have a belly hanging down doesn't mean they're a healthy weight.

Free feeding is unhealthy period and science backs it up again and again. If they aren't living 15-20 years then they were not healthy.

[Pengalor]

Take them to the vet...do not trust any advice here since 1) I doubt anyone here is a vet, 2) Even if they were, they couldn't tell with any real certainty without a physical examination of the cat, and 3) Their personal anecdotes do not necessarily pertain to your situation.

[Cerus]

dry food is great for a cat

Don't give out bad advice. Dry food is terrible for cats. They aren't big drinkers to begin with. There's a reason nearly all cats end up with chronic kidney issues. Cat fountains exist because it encourages them to drink but it's still not enough. Wet food is the best thing to feed next to raw. Dry food actually sucks moisture from the body during digestion. Chronic dehydration will destroy a cats kidneys.

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Soften the hard food with water. Cats don't have the same kind of teeth as humans and can't chew food.

What the fuck are you talking about? You think only humans can chew their food?

Btw - cats can crush and digest bone....can you?

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Take them to the vet...do not trust any advice here since 1) I doubt anyone here is a vet, 2) Even if they were, they couldn't tell with any real certainty without a physical examination of the cat, and 3) Their personal anecdotes do not necessarily pertain to your situation.

So he shouldn't trust your advice either right?

Dry food fed cats vomit. If it was a daily thing I might agree. But one occurrence a week without blood or any other symptoms is nothing to rush to a vet over. They'll just run a bunch of useless, expensive tests and find nothing. 99% of vets will jump at the chance to make a lot of money.

[Pengalor]

So he shouldn't trust your advice either right?

Dry food fed cats vomit. If it was a daily thing I might agree. But one occurrence a week without blood or any other symptoms is nothing to rush to a vet over. They'll just run a bunch of useless, expensive tests and find nothing. 99% of vets will jump at the chance to make a lot of money.

Don't be a pedant. And if you want to take chances with the health of someone else's pet then you feel free but I'm not going to sit here and tell someone who I've never met (much less been around the cat) and tell them there's absolutely nothing to worry about, it would be unethical and illogical to do so. Just the fact that they are considering a vet visit means they probably shouldn't chance it in my eyes. And sure, it could be expensive, it might turn out to be nothing, I don't really care. I just lost my cat about a month and a half ago to terminal cancer, one of the symptoms being persistent nausea and occasional vomiting so I figure why take the chance.

[kail]

So he shouldn't trust your advice either right?

Dry food fed cats vomit. If it was a daily thing I might agree. But one occurrence a week without blood or any other symptoms is nothing to rush to a vet over. They'll just run a bunch of useless, expensive tests and find nothing. 99% of vets will jump at the chance to make a lot of money.

Fine, but at least look up information or post the query in a more relevant site than MMO-C. And there does come a time when visiting vets, doctors, car mechanics, etc becomes a smarter choice. Not everyone is out to fuck you over.