Cats Throwing Up Clear/foam Raw Food Diet

[Mocharuns]

Hi Everyone,
This is my first post. I have 3 cats and have been feeding them raw food for 10 years. I first started with Feline’s Pride when they had a branch in our area. When that closed we went to Hare Today Gone Tomorrow. Recently, one of my cats had a bout of constipation. We realized we were giving too much bone in their diet. We changed percentages of bone, breast and organs. We give 1/3 pd liver (ground chicken organs), 1 pd chicken/bone/organ, 1 1/2 pd boneless chicken breast. Add alnutrin, mix it all together and it is the correct percentage of bones/organ/meat per their web site. I spoke with Tracy and her daughter and have confirmed proper ratios. Tracy said the cats produce bile when hungry which could account for white foam vomit. She also said we might be under feeding them. My vet said they are the proper weight. But we started giving them an extra meal. (3x/ day). So...today and every few days my cats vomit this clear liquid. Not really foam anymore. It is always in the early morning hours. And since they sleep with me I get thrown up on at 4-6 am. Not everyday and not the same cat. I’m tired of waking up this way, not to mention my cats are probably not happy either. Any advice?

 

[lisahe]

Welcome to The Cat Site, Mocharuns! Though I'm sorry to hear about your cats' vomiting problem.

I'm not up on ideal proportions of bone for homemade raw food (I feed only commercial raw foods) and how a change in recipe might have an effect on the vomiting but I wonder what times you feed your cats. Our two used to vomit up frothy stuff in the mornings, too, but that pretty much stopped after we started feeding them a nighttime snack. For various reasons that I won't go into, we feed them five meals (of varying sizes) a day, from about 6:30 a.m. until about 9:45 p.m.

 

[Mocharuns]

We feed them at around 6 am, 4 pm and before bed 9 pm. What commercial raw food do you feed your cats?

 

[Azazel]

Could they possibly be getting into something they shouldn’t? Any plants in the house?

 

[lisahe]

Our cats get weird combinations of freeze-dried Primal, Northwest Naturals, Feline Natural, a tiny bit of Stella & Chewy's. They also get a frozen snack each day, either of Rad Cat or Oma's Pride Purr. Not all their foods are raw: they also eat a daily meal of homecooked food made with EZ Complete (which has been very good for our pickier cat's minor nausea issues), plus one canned meal.

A Azazel asks a good question about getting into something: we sometimes wonder this with our cats, when someone barfs with no apparent reason. The cats really love to hoover up dust, bits of food I might have dropped while cooking, etc. Not to mention bits of leaves and pine needles that somehow filter into the screened veranda.

What's oddest is that it sounds like all three of your cats seem to be vomiting. That makes me wonder if there's something about the supplement or the meat mix that's changed and doesn't agree with them. My biggest suspicions on cause would still be the long period between meals from night to morning (this is a problem for a lot of cats even with what seem like normal amounts to time) and/or underfeeding, though if your cats are at a good weight, that seems like an unlikely culprit! Are the cats eating well, meaning not hesitating or seeming picky about their food? Sometimes nausea can be an issue, too, and it can manifest itself in what seems like pickiness as well as lip-licking.

 

[dhammagirl]

I had the same thing going on with one of my cats. It was almost like clockwork, he'd urp clear liquid in the early morning hours.
Ick He was also losing weight, despite eating plenty of the raw food.
We've been doing raw for a couple years now.
I switched him to canned food, just Fancy Feast classic pate, and the urping stopped.
As an experiment, after a couple of weeks I gave him some ground raw boneless turkey thighs (HT with Alnutrin), thinking maybe it was the bone or fur in the raw ground whole carcass rabbit giving him issues.
The urping returned. So I've had to come to the conclusion that for whatever reason, his digestive system has issues with the raw.
So, you might try some canned food and see if it stops.

 

[lisahe]

So, you might try some canned food and see if it stops.

Yes, either that or maybe switching the supplement. It could be that, too. And I'd also wonder about the bone... not all cats do well with large quantities of bone in their diets, which is one reason Rad Cat is so popular. (Plus of course most cats seem to love it!)

 

[Mocharuns]

Could they possibly be getting into something they shouldn’t? Any plants in the house?

Could they possibly be getting into something they shouldn’t? Any plants in the house?

Nope, great question...we have no plants. Our cats love to eat them and yes then they would throw them up.

 

[sophie1]

I'm in the process of getting my cats used to eating raw meals twice a day (long story). They're allowed to graze, but they mostly just eat everything within about an hour. Interestingly, they used to regurgitate food fairly often but that's completely stopped. I wonder if the temperature of the food was the issue. I wash out their bowls with hot water before feeding them, so while the food itself is still cold the bowls are warm. I really can only do two meals because of work hours, and because I frequently go on short business trips.

They have been frantically begging for food as mealtime approaches. No one is vomiting before meals though I've been worried about that. I started leaving out some freeze dried food in a puzzle ball (Feline Natural with pieces broken in half, or nature variety minis), and that's made a huge difference in behavior and gives me some peace of mind. LisaHe have you done this and are there other foods you've tried that might work well in a puzzle feeder? Northwest naturals isn't a bad option although the pieces are a bit crumbly.

 

[furmonster mom]

I've also been feeding raw for about a decade, and I also keep a 2 meal schedule. Occasionally we'll get the morning urps, usually when we've waited long past their usual meal time (or we've fed earlier than usual the night before). From 6-4 is eight hours, but from 9-6 is nine hours; that extra hour just might be the kicker So maybe the puzzle ball is not such a bad idea.

Sometimes it's about furballs, too, so I have to add in a little extra egg yolk with their meals.

 

[lisahe]

LisaHe have you done this and are there other foods you've tried that might work well in a puzzle feeder?

No, I haven't put food in a sort of puzzle feeder, though we do have one. (The cats like to bat the pieces of the feeder around so we just leave it for playing!) I think Feline Natural would be ideal. Stella & Chewy's might be a bit large (larger than Northwest Naturals but much firmer) but that would depend on your feeder. And you might be able to break some Primal bricks into pieces that would work.

From 6-4 is eight hours, but from 9-6 is nine hours; that extra hour just might be the kicker

I agree! We notice a big difference with our cats on the weekends, when we sleep in a little. That's when they walk on our heads.