My raw fed cat has been pukey lately

[thedude]

My Bengal is 8. She's been on raw chicken her whole life. I buy food online and have it shipped, currently using a company called AllProvide. She's been on this brand for about 3 years. Prior to that was RadCat. She's always been somewhat of a puker. She'd throw up maybe once every couple weeks. Maybe even only once a month at times. Due to some bad circumstances last month we had to switch her food cold turkey. (shipping issues, timing etc..) so I bought another commercially available food that had similar ingredients (chicken, bones, organs, supplements etc...). She started puking every 3-4 days. Then ramped up to where it was every night for a few nights. Finally got her AllProvide food back in and switched back to that. Still puking every night. So after a few nights took her to the vet. They did xrays, bloodwork, and an ultrasound and found nothing obviously wrong. Said maybe we should look into an endoscopy and possibly exploratory surgery! I said to hold off since the timing with the new food and all.

So now a week and a half she's been back on her normal brand and still puking but not as much. Was every 1.5 days, but now hasn't puked in 3 days. She's always done this thing when her tummy is empty (mainly in mornings) where she licks her lips and kinda like chews on air, and this is how i know a puke is coming. So the last couple days I've been feeding her many smaller meals throughout the day, even woke up at night to feed her some! It seems to be helping but she still seems like she wants to puke sometimes. She does the salivating / chewing thing during the day now, which she never did previously. I immediately give her food when i see this. It seems to stop it at the time but makes her prone to puking later that day, like once she hits a point, its coming out at some point in the day. She's 9 lbs and eats about 4oz per day. Maybe I'm not feeding her enough? Or maybe there is something else wrong? Or maybe it's the food?

It's just so hard to pinpoint if she has an allergy to any ingredients in this food. Allprovide does put some weird things in it but she's been on it for years and never puked this much. I'm wondering if its the remnants from switching foods still? Or something else? Just looking for any input or support as I'm stressed and scared by all her issues.

Also I am going to look into grinding our own food but need to do a ton more research. I feel I can add less supplements here and maybe she'd do better on that? I just worry she wouldn't eat it and then get herself sicker than she is now.

Sorry for such a long post. I'm just on edge lately and the vet hasn't helped my anxiety.

 

[Azazel]

Can you see a different vet for a second opinion?

What about trying a novel protein? She may have become sensitive to poultry.

 

[thedude]

Can you see a different vet for a second opinion?

What about trying a novel protein? She may have become sensitive to poultry.

We did take her to a 2nd vet who just looked over the results from the first vet and did a visual exam. He said it could be food related (switching, or an allergy in general) or it could be a million other things.

Good idea on the novel protein. What's considered a novel protein? Rabbit/turkey etc?

 

[Azazel]

We did take her to a 2nd vet who just looked over the results from the first vet and did a visual exam. He said it could be food related (switching, or an allergy in general) or it could be a million other things.

Good idea on the novel protein. What's considered a novel protein? Rabbit/turkey etc?

Yep it can be anything that she hasn’t tried before or for a long time. Rabbit and turkey are good ones. The other thing is to try giving her boneless food. Sometimes bones are hard for some cats to digest and some commercial raw foods put too much bone in their products. Rad Cat was great because it used eggshell calcium instead but maybe you can find a different boneless brand or try using a premix such as Alnutrition, EZcomplete or Tcfeline.

 

[Tobermory]

In addition to what you’ve tried and what A Azazel suggests, have you tried taking the chill off of her food? I make my own cat food and I always put the food container in warm water for a few minutes so it’s not refrigerator cold. That and the smaller, more frequent meals like you’re doing helps Iris, my sensitive tummy kitty.

 

[thedude]

Yep it can be anything that she hasn’t tried before or for a long time. Rabbit and turkey are good ones. The other thing is to try giving her boneless food. Sometimes bones are hard for some cats to digest and some commercial raw foods put too much bone in their products. Rad Cat was great because it used eggshell calcium instead but maybe you can find a different boneless brand or try using a premix such as Alnutrition, EZcomplete or Tcfeline.

The premixes sound awesome. I was already stressing out over what supplements to add and whatnot. It seems like most of these you just add meat, mixture, and water. Now just to try and decide which to use.

 

[thedude]

In addition to what you’ve tried and what A Azazel suggests, have you tried taking the chill off of her food? I make my own cat food and I always put the food container in warm water for a few minutes so it’s not refrigerator cold. That and the smaller, more frequent meals like you’re doing helps Iris, my sensitive tummy kitty.

I normally leave it on the counter a bit before giving it to her but I'll try that as well. It seems the issues are mainly when her tummy is empty.

 

[Tobermory]

Interestingly, when I made pork batches and added my own supplements (using the recipe at catinfo.org), Iris vomited it up almost every time and started refusing it. She still loved the chicken, turkey, and rabbit batches even though she occasionally would hurl those, too. But once I started using EZ Complete, she started eating pork again.

You can get free samples from EZ Complete and Alnutrin both. I haven’t tried TC Feline. You have to add liver with Alnutrin. Mine liked both, but I decided to go with EZC.

 

[dhammagirl]

Your description of the pre-puking behavior, lip licking, mouth movements, and it being primarily in the morning on an empty stomach, sounds exactly like the behavior of my kitty Bilbo. He’s 12 now, and has just been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. His puking was more frequent until about a month ago. I took him to the vet, which is extremely stressful for him, because he’s ravenous yet was losing weight, and I read that vomiting (along with other things) can be one of the symptoms of hyperthyroidism.

Have they checked his thyroid levels? Even if he’s not losing weight, it’s a possibility.

 

[daftcat75]

Nausea and vomiting are non-specific symptoms. It could be anything from hunger to cancer and so many things in between. Start with the easy ones. 4 oz doesn’t sound like enough food for a 9 lbs cat. They say 3-5% body weight per day. 4% of 9 lbs is just shy of 6 oz. How many times do you feed per day? Raw food is more digestible and won’t stay in the stomach as long as commercial cooked food. A cat may eat ten small kills a day. If you can, try 4 meals a day. If she still eats a little canned, you can use timed feeders for daytime and overnight nibbles. Obviously don’t do this with raw. And my third suggestion would be to put her portion in a baggie and run under warm water for a minute or so until the chill is out of the food. I’d try those three suggestions before doing novel proteins and other food trials.

 

[SpecterOhPossum]

I use U-stew, it's cheaper. Just throwing that into the mix.

 

[lisahe]

Nausea and vomiting are non-specific symptoms. It could be anything from hunger to cancer and so many things in between. Start with the easy ones. 4 oz doesn’t sound like enough food for a 9 lbs cat. They say 3-5% body weight per day. 4% of 9 lbs is just shy of 6 oz. How many times do you feed per day? Raw food is more digestible and won’t stay in the stomach as long as commercial cooked food. A cat may eat ten small kills a day. If you can, try 4 meals a day.

Yes to feeding a little more. I also think 4 ounces doesn't sound like quite enough, even if it's fairly calorie-dense food. (Meaning, most likely, with a lot of fat.) I also second the "as many meals a day as possible," especially if your cat is a rescue who might still have food anxiety and might eat too quickly. (Which can, of course, be exacerbated by not feeding enough.) This is an issue for one of our cats; we feed five meals a day.

The other thing is to try giving her boneless food. Sometimes bones are hard for some cats to digest and some commercial raw foods put too much bone in their products. Rad Cat was great because it used eggshell calcium instead but maybe you can find a different boneless brand or try using a premix such as Alnutrition, EZcomplete or Tcfeline.

This is the other thing I'd suggest. AllProvide contains "chicken with bone" and bone can cause constipation, which can cause nausea. Our other had mild constipation -- no apparent litter box straining but she just never quite felt like eating enough and was a lip-licker, too. She didn't vomit but she was clearly not feeling good. She's a very happy eater with very, very little lip licking now that we've reduced the bone in her diet! (I don't know what AllProvide's bone percentage is but it might be worth asking them. 10% is pretty standard but Ireland can't handle that even in a once-a-day meal that's not too big.)

 

[thedude]

Thank you everyone for the comments and helpful information. I've been feeding her 4oz per day based on what she would eat before all this started. It seemed any more than 4oz per day and she'd leave some on her plate. So we are right around 3% right now but I have been upping it the past couple days to around 5oz per day in smaller meals.

She had a good run these last few days. She puked Sunday night and didn't puke again until last night, which was disappointing as I thought maybe I was onto something and she was getting better. But I guess going 4 days in between is better than 1 or 2. It appears the food stays in her stomach longer too since she puked overnight about 4 hours or so after her last meal and she still puked up some food, and some bile. I really was sad last night when this happened though since she had been doing so well. It is really hard feeding her all these times throughout the day though. She did the lip licking thing yesterday when I got home from work and I immediately gave her some food, but once she's licked the lips like that, it's over. It means she puking in the next 24 hours guaranteed. So weird.

She was tested for hyperthyroidism and it came back normal. A few other things the vet said now that I look back at my notes. She said she had some bone in her stomach but wasn't too concerned. So maybe my kitty is having trouble digesting bone like was suggested here? I imagine having all that sit in there could cause nausea? She also said it looked like her stomach was churning the food and not passing it through quite as fast. At first she was worried this meant there was a blockage but after the ultrasound she said she didn't see one.

I really want to try and move her away from bones but I'm very nervous about doing it right now. She's been through so much with the food switching that started this all to the stressful vet visit, to all the puking. I'm worried that trying to switch again right now might mess her up even more, even if I do it really slowly. Maybe I should try just switching it up reallllllly slowly. Like a tiny bit of bone free food.

As I said earlier, I really appreciate everyone's help. This is a really stressful situation for me and the vet keeps saying I should have the endoscopy and/or exploratory surgery done but I'm not sure I'm ready to go that route yet. She said if the endoscopy found nothing she'd help me get my cat "on a better diet". So Science Diet was her recommendation. She thinks it's a far superior diet to Raw.

 

[Azazel]

It does sound like she may have a blockage to be honest. Are there no other tests they can run besides the ultrasound? My understanding is that sometimes the ultrasound can miss these things.

 

[thedude]

It does sound like she may have a blockage to be honest. Are there no other tests they can run besides the ultrasound? My understanding is that sometimes the ultrasound can miss these things.

They just said the endoscopy or exploratory surgery. The endoscopy would obviously be full anesthesia so I'm cautious.

What leads you to suspect blockage? She has been having normal bowel movements.

 

[Azazel]

They just said the endoscopy or exploratory surgery. The endoscopy would obviously be full anesthesia so I'm cautious.

What leads you to suspect blockage? She has been having normal bowel movements.

It’s hard to tell since puking can be a symptom of so many things but the poor digestion and chronic vomiting with bile could be signs. I’m not a medical professional though so really just guessing. Usually if it’s an allergen it will be accompanied by itching immediately after the allergen is consumed.

 

[thedude]

It’s hard to tell since puking can be a symptom of so many things but the poor digestion and chronic vomiting with bile could be signs. I’m not a medical professional though so really just guessing. Usually if it’s an allergen it will be accompanied by itching immediately after the allergen is consumed.

I'll see how she does this weekend and think more about the endoscopy. I was hoping to avoid knocking her out and having such an invasive procedure done but it might help.

 

[Azazel]

I'll see how she does this weekend and think more about the endoscopy. I was hoping to avoid knocking her out and having such an invasive procedure done but it might help.

I completely understand. I try to avoid those things at all costs. I really don’t know whether it would be worth it to have the endoscopy, it would scare me too. Do you have any cats only vets in your area that you could ask for an opinion?

 

[lisahe]

One other thing that hasn't been mentioned on this thread is the possibility of hairballs. Cats don't necessarily vomit them out: they should be passing them but that doesn't always work.

One of our cats (the fast eater!) seems to has problems with hair sometimes even though we brush her every day. (She's very fluffy, which I'm sure is part of the problem. That and her gut, which has always been quirky but is now aging, which can decrease motility.) I sometimes give her small amounts of Vaseline, which seems to help. There's very good advice about hairballs on this page. I also add extra egg yolk to the cats' food, which seems to help. There are also motility drugs that can apparently help, though we want to avoid that if we can. Of course what your vet said about food churning and not moving quickly enough could be related to a decrease in motility. (This is something our vet is always talking about, meaning it's on my mind!)

 

[thedude]

One other thing that hasn't been mentioned on this thread is the possibility of hairballs. Cats don't necessarily vomit them out: they should be passing them but that doesn't always work.

One of our cats (the fast eater!) seems to has problems with hair sometimes even though we brush her every day. (She's very fluffy, which I'm sure is part of the problem. That and her gut, which has always been quirky but is now aging, which can decrease motility.) I sometimes give her small amounts of Vaseline, which seems to help. There's very good advice about hairballs on this page. I also add extra egg yolk to the cats' food, which seems to help. There are also motility drugs that can apparently help, though we want to avoid that if we can. Of course what your vet said about food churning and not moving quickly enough could be related to a decrease in motility. (This is something our vet is always talking about, meaning it's on my mind!)

Thank you for the info. I will definitely keep that in mind. She doesn't shed a ton and licks quite often and rarely has hairballs. I do notice hair in her feces (gross that I check, I know). I only checked since she started puking I was looking for worms etc...My cat does seem very anxious lately too, probably because she's not feeling well.