6 year old Morty isn't doing so well

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You had another acid barfer this week, though. Right?

If you do want timed feeders, sadly, the ones I recommend are not available anymore. But these look to be a very competent replacement:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FT93YM2/?tag=thecatsite

It comes with an ice pack that you can use with wet food. Though I put wet food in those feeders (or similar) without an ice pack and Krista ate it just fine.

I like these clamshell feeders over the wheel feeders. The wheels may contain more meals. But for cats that graze, it's going to rotate any uneaten portions back inside the wheel. With the clamshells, there is no time limit on a portion.
Yes, you are correct. I was looking for one for Po but I didn't see any this cheap!! Some of the more recent reviews don't look great, but I guess I can always return it if it doesn't work.

Again, I don't think this would work with Morty (he has access to food all night and any time he asks for it anyway) but it would be great for Po. Maybe I could just stick a small treat for him in it in the middle of the night.
 
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Here you go. I don't know if the brand is any good. But I'm sure you can look this up on Amazon and read its reviews. This is a one-day only deal, though.

Winix C545 4 Stage Wifi Air Purifier - $69.99 - Free shipping for Prime members
That does look like a good price. Costco sells the same one for 130.00. I'll have to think about it though. This was the one I had before that I ended up trashing:

Holmes Lifelong Tower Air Purifier with Air Ionizer

Actually...now that I think of it, I wonder if our window AC has a setting for this. I'll have to go look (it's in the closet right now), but we have a pretty expensive Honeywell on wheels.
 
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Shoot, I think it just has a dehumidifier setting. Its description says:

A More Breathable Space
The Washable Dual Filtration System filters dust, pet dander and hair from entering the unit - Protects & extends the life of this AC bringing you value, while also helping to reduce impurities in the air.

What's More? The Filters are washable and easily cleaned under a faucet - no replacement filters required, and there is a Filter Clean Alert to remind you when its time to clean the filter.

I have a feeling that won't do much. 🤦‍♀️
 

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Shoot, I think it just has a dehumidifier setting. Its description says:

A More Breathable Space
The Washable Dual Filtration System filters dust, pet dander and hair from entering the unit - Protects & extends the life of this AC bringing you value, while also helping to reduce impurities in the air.

What's More? The Filters are washable and easily cleaned under a faucet - no replacement filters required, and there is a Filter Clean Alert to remind you when its time to clean the filter.

I have a feeling that won't do much. 🤦‍♀️
Which one is that?

The Winix above has HEPA filtration. That's what you want. It also has an activated carbon filter which helps with odors.

True HEPA Filtration: Captures 99.97%* of airborne allergens including; pollen, mold spores, dust, pet dander, microbes, and smoke (particles as small as 0.3 microns in size).

Activated Carbon Filter: Reduces VOCs and household odors from cooking, pets, and smoke. It is designed to catch airborne particles found indoors, which also helps prolong the True HEPA Filter life.
 
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Which one is that?

The Winix above has HEPA filtration. That's what you want. It also has an activated carbon filter which helps with odors.
Oh that was just for the Honeywell AC that I already have. Sadly the filters are not HEPA. 😐

Well I think we'll just have to wait and make do with what we have. Maybe the Honeywell could add at least a little improvement in the future until we can afford a proper one.
 
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Morty Update:

More vomit today, this time it was just food (cooked venison). It was shortly after eating but not regurgitation as he still did the "vomit" noises. The pork should finally be thawed enough for me to prep it, so he'll be switching to that tonight.

I'm starting to think it's not the food making him vomit.

I have nothing else to add so here are some fun photos from the past couple days.

IMG-9199.JPG
IMG-9196.JPG


Morty eats like a weirdo with his butt up....we've even tried elevated bowls and he still does the same thing. He also likes to creep on you from different places. I have dozens of photos of him just creeping on me from random places.
IMG-9200.JPG
IMG-9205.jpg
 

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Are you not concerned by the face plant photos? Or was he a face planter before all this started?

I love the creeper photo! Krista would do that too. 😹 😻
 
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Are you not concerned by the face plant photos? Or was he a face planter before all this started?

I love the creeper photo! Krista would do that too. 😹 😻
Nah he's always been a face planter. It's one of his favorite sleeping positions. Here's one from two years ago back when he was a Norcal cat.

IMG-4628(2).JPG
 

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Nah he's always been a face planter. It's one of his favorite sleeping positions. Here's one from two years ago back when he was a Norcal cat.

View attachment 372674
Some cats are like that. That's why I thought I'd ask. But it is also a possible sign of pain. I'm not sure how you tell the difference in a cat who has always done this. 🤷‍♂️
 
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Some cats are like that. That's why I thought I'd ask. But it is also a possible sign of pain. I'm not sure how you tell the difference in a cat who has always done this. 🤷‍♂️
It's tough. He has also done this when he's in pain, but I can usually tell which it is if I pet him. He won't purr if he's in pain, but if he isn't he will usually purr and roll over. It's definitely not fool proof though.
 
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Morty Update:

Another puke tonight, just one watery pile though. He and Po are hating the cooked pork transition. While raw pork was always Morty's favorite, he doesn't seem to like cooked quite so much. He hasn't been eating very much the past couple days because of this. He went about 9 hours today in between feedings because he didn't seem to be very hungry. When I put down the pork for his dinner he ignored it for about 30min, and then eventually ate a little bit. Almost immediately he threw it up. Again, it wasn't regurgitation because he made the physical gagging noises. Right afterword he seemed just fine. I wonder if in this instance he threw up because he went too long without eating 9as it was just one pile), but I don't really have any way to know. I did add egg yolk to this one as well as Alnutrin with eggshell, so I guess it's possible he might be struggling with the egg. At this point I doubt it though, it seems like he just throws up from everything. The longest I've ever been able to get him to not puke was when was when he was on raw only (or on the Cerenia).

I'm going to prepare his next meal of cooked pork with just the alnutrin with eggshell. He can go a bit without fish oil (especially since it's not even required in many commercial foods) and maybe this will make it more appetizing to him. If this constant puking persists more than once a week, I'm going to contact the vet for Cerenia.

My fiance thinks we should just immediately go back to raw since that's what he was doing best on. I have some reservations on that though...I just don't think it's a good idea until his vomiting gets a bit more controlled again. It doesn't make sense to me that cooked food would cause him to be sick but raw would not, so it must be something else.
 
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Just gave Morty some plain cooked pork/heart/liver as a snack and chopped it up. He INHAILED it. So either it's our weird concoction that he's not liking, or the fact that it's blended up. We'll try again a bit later with blended pork + alnutrin meal.
 

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I don't know. The trouble with troubleshooting cats butt and gut issues is that there are always too many variables and we never seem to stick to our plans. If he seemed stable on raw, I would suggest that. You're done with the antibiotics now, right? If you're not sure about the fish oil, that's an easy one to skip. If the Cerenia helped, maybe talk to the vet about sending a prescription to Wedgewood for anything easier than the pill you had been giving him before.
Cerenia Medication & Information for Animals

Krista liked raw homemade over cooked and she liked a good fluffy frozen grind over anything blended. Thawed before serving of course. Whether the portion came from the freezer, the fridge, or the pantry, I spooned it into a baggie and ran it under warm to hot water for a minute or two before serving. That fixed a lot of leftovers and second portion pickiness with her.

Cats are picky and tricky. I think you're just going to need science journals (or Google Sheets) for each one. Record what they ate, how much they ate, how long it took them to eat it, and whether they had a butt or gut issue with it afterwards. Hopefully you'll start to see the patterns and can devise diets around their weak spots.
 
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I don't know. The trouble with troubleshooting cats butt and gut issues is that there are always too many variables and we never seem to stick to our plans. If he seemed stable on raw, I would suggest that. You're done with the antibiotics now, right? If you're not sure about the fish oil, that's an easy one to skip. If the Cerenia helped, maybe talk to the vet about sending a prescription to Wedgewood for anything easier than the pill you had been giving him before.
Cerenia Medication & Information for Animals

Krista liked raw homemade over cooked and she liked a good fluffy frozen grind over anything blended. Thawed before serving of course. Whether the portion came from the freezer, the fridge, or the pantry, I spooned it into a baggie and ran it under warm to hot water for a minute or two before serving. That fixed a lot of leftovers and second portion pickiness with her.

Cats are picky and tricky. I think you're just going to need science journals (or Google Sheets) for each one. Record what they ate, how much they ate, how long it took them to eat it, and whether they had a butt or gut issue with it afterwards. Hopefully you'll start to see the patterns and can devise diets around their weak spots.
Yup, sticking to plans is a big one for me. I just want him to get better so my mind then calculates the next most likely cause of the vomit, even though it doesn't quite work like that in cats. We made his dinner last night with just blended cooked pork and alnutrin and he seemed to enjoy it. So at least I can rule one thing out...both cats were ignoring the pork because of something else I added to it. It was probably the egg yolk powder.

We did a weigh in with all three cats today. Morty came in at 12.2 so he's basically maintaining, give or take an ounce or two. Po was 13.8....also sadly maintaining. Goose is now 11 pounds at 8 months. Luckily he's not fat, but he's going to be a huge cat.

I'm happy we have no stool issues to worry about for anyone, so at least it will make tracking the food in that sense a bit easier. He is done with his meds, but I worry that hit gut may not be healed yet which gives me reservations for raw. I've basically been using this thread as a way to keep track of the vomiting because it's easy to look back on it, but I'll start tracking more details to see if we can find any patterns.
 

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Yup, sticking to plans is a big one for me. I just want him to get better so my mind then calculates the next most likely cause of the vomit, even though it doesn't quite work like that in cats. We made his dinner last night with just blended cooked pork and alnutrin and he seemed to enjoy it. So at least I can rule one thing out...both cats were ignoring the pork because of something else I added to it. It was probably the egg yolk powder.

We did a weigh in with all three cats today. Morty came in at 12.2 so he's basically maintaining, give or take an ounce or two. Po was 13.8....also sadly maintaining. Goose is now 11 pounds at 8 months. Luckily he's not fat, but he's going to be a huge cat.

I'm happy we have no stool issues to worry about for anyone, so at least it will make tracking the food in that sense a bit easier. He is done with his meds, but I worry that hit gut may not be healed yet which gives me reservations for raw. I've basically been using this thread as a way to keep track of the vomiting because it's easy to look back on it, but I'll start tracking more details to see if we can find any patterns.
I couldn’t agree more, sticking to the plan is hard to do. I always want to see immediate results or I change it to quickly. As far as meds go though, I went directly to the website of the compounding pharmacy to see what they had to offer in a medicine I was trying to get into one of my cats once. Sometimes there are multiple choices. I found a tiny pill (they called tabs) that I easily crushed and put in food. I guess because it was a small amount it worked fine, she didn’t taste it. In fact, it worked better than the liquid flavored compound I had gotten first.
 
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I couldn’t agree more, sticking to the plan is hard to do. I always want to see immediate results or I change it to quickly. As far as meds go though, I went directly to the website of the compounding pharmacy to see what they had to offer in a medicine I was trying to get into one of my cats once. Sometimes there are multiple choices. I found a tiny pill (they called tabs) that I easily crushed and put in food. I guess because it was a small amount it worked fine, she didn’t taste it. In fact, it worked better than the liquid flavored compound I had gotten first.
Yeah, I'm just really hoping we can find the problem without meds. But if it comes to that it will be the next step for us. Good news is we are now over 5 days with no puke....if he can just make it two more it would give me some more confidence. I've been sticking with just home cooked and Alnutrin (without fish oil) but I did have to add the egg yolk back in because both cats were getting constipated (which is ironic considering my last post). So once again I didn't stick to plan....but I mostly did. :lol:
 
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Morty update:

It's officially been two weeks with not a single vomit! I never thought this was possible and I'm ecstatic. Maybe with the exception of the Cerenia, I cannot tell you how long it has been that we've gone a solid 2 weeks without even a hairball. Maybe three years? I'm so unbelievably happy for Morty, and he's been acting like a new cat.

Normally Morty spends most of his days sleeping, with maybe 20-30 min playing with Po. Now he's constantly playing. Some of these behaviors aren't the best...swiping at my feet as I walk by, lightly biting me to play, harassing Po...but I don't really care because I can tell he's finally happy. He even jumped on our fridge! I couldn't believe it as he's always been a bit of an unbalanced jumper. But anyway, the point is he's energetic and happy again. He's still being a picky about eating the same food, and some days he eats more than others, but he is maintaining his weight. Unfortunately Po is somehow getting fatter...

Anyway, now that we have made it to two weeks I want to find out what the problem was. The last elimination I did was removing fish oil, probiotics and collagen. This makes me think he was reacting to the fish oil...but I feel like this is so unlikely. It's possible that the stop in vomiting is just circumstantial and is a result from previously removing turkey/peas and that it just took a bit to catch up...but I don't know if that's correct either. I wouldn't doubt it if he was reacting to those proteins too, but as I mentioned previously even when he was on all raw he would occasionally (maybe once a week or so) throw up and I never fed him raw turkey, with the exception of those infamous treats.

The only way to know for sure is to add the fish oil back in. Morty's been doing so well so I feel so bad saying this, but we need to know for sure. If it turns out he's reacting to it, our only other option would be krill oil, which some cats also react to. After krill oil there's nothing else...other than maybe flax which cats can barely absorb. I guess feeding whole prey could be an option, but I'd rather avoid that route if possible. Temporarily going without omegas won't cause a lot of harm, but I fear what might happen in the long run. He's already got a dandruff problem.

So that's my next move. I'm going to add the fish oil back in and see if he reacts. Sadly, I hoping he does react because that would finally tell me what I've been doing wrong.
 

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Please give it longer before you challenge him looking for triggers. I know you want answers. But his gut has been through a lot. Please give it two or three months so his gut has a chance to heal. If he becomes reactive again, you run the risk of something protracted. The longer it takes to cool it down, the higher the risk for a learned allergy (gut becomes leaky from inflammation and the immune system sees food proteins in the bloodstream that it considers a foreign threat.) Exercise patience and revel in his newfound health.
 
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Please give it longer before you challenge him looking for triggers. I know you want answers. But his gut has been through a lot. Please give it two or three months so his gut has a chance to heal. If he becomes reactive again, you run the risk of something protracted. The longer it takes to cool it down, the higher the risk for a learned allergy (gut becomes leaky from inflammation and the immune system sees food proteins in the bloodstream that it considers a foreign threat.) Exercise patience and revel in his newfound health.
Okay, I understand where you're coming from. But is it okay to not give cats their omegas for that long? I've always heard it stressed so much when feeding raw (for example) that you must supplement with fish oil. We can definitely wait, and you're right about healing his gut, but idk what I would use in the meantime. His dandruff is also starting to get really bad.
 
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