Homemade food feeding problem need advice

[purplesnurple]

I have a 10 year old cat who has had diarrhea and vomiting issues for years, which has recently gotten much worse. She was hospitalized for a week and seen by Internal Medicine specialists last week. I got a recipe designed specifically for her needs by certified veterinary nutritionists which contains chicken, sweet potato, omega 3 oils, peanut oil, and Balance IT kidney. Once I brought her home from the hospital I fed her the old commercial food for 2 days just to get her eating again (she hadn't eaten in 5 days while in hospital), but it again caused diarrhea (I've been dealing with finding solutions for years and this was high quality commercial food she did well on for a long time). On Friday I switched her to the sweet potato and chicken diet (no supplements) and since then no diarrhea! She loves the food, is feeling much better, and her bowels are normal. So now I am going to slowly transition in the supplements. The vet wants her to eat only this diet for several months as a food trial, so adding in any commercial food is out of the question.

Here is my newly discovered problem: with fresh food like this I was told I can only safely leave it out for her to eat for 1-2 hours. My cat has always been a grazer eating very small portions very frequently. In the past I tried getting her on to a 3-4 meals per day routine, but it was so stressful she'd force herself to finish the food while gagging only to throw it up afterwards. Her tummy can't handle more than a dollop of food at a time. She has done very well this weekend eating a dollop every 2-3 hours, but I have to return to work and life so I cannot feed her that frequently. And I cannot afford a pet sitter to come that often.

Does anyone have any suggestions or advice on how to regulate her new feeding? I would love to be able to let her continue to eat a comfortable amount frequently, but it would go bad during the day or night and she'd end up eating bad food. I saw those automatic feeders with ice packs online, but I'm unsure if it would keep the food at a safe temperature for long periods of time (not to mention they are made of plastic ugh). She has sensitive teeth so I also warm her food to a nice temperature before feeding her, but if cold is her only option for some meals I guess she would deal with it. Any help would be greatly appreciated thank you guys!

 

[pogo16]

This goes against all the rules I've learned about raw meat and food safety… but if I'm working late, I put some FROZEN raw food in a bowl. As the raw food defrosts, the cats eat it. So, the rate that food defrosts controls how much the cats can eat at a time. It has worked quite well. The cats are fed and happy.

I believe some raw feeders also use, and I've always meant to buy, frostybowlz. It keeps the contents of the bowl at a cold temp. That would be much better for food safety. 

If you left a succession of raw food in separate frostybowlz, that could work to feed your kitty. One bowl has cold raw food that your cat can immediately graze on. When she's done with that bowl, your cat can move to the next bowl with semi-frozen raw, and when your cat finishes the semi-frozen, the bowl with the frozen raw will be ready to be eaten, and so on...

You can order frostybowlz online. Hope that works for you. 

Hopefully you'll get better solutions!

 

[Willowy]

The frostybowlz seem like they would work. Or, you can get an automatic feeder with an ice pack in it to open a new part every 2 hours (or whatever you think would work).

I don't see any reason that a cooked homemade food would spoil any faster than canned food :dk:.

 

[purplesnurple]

 
This goes against all the rules I've learned about raw meat and food safety… but if I'm working late, I put some FROZEN raw food in a bowl. As the raw food defrosts, the cats eat it. So, the rate that food defrosts controls how much the cats can eat at a time. It has worked quite well. The cats are fed and happy.

I believe some raw feeders also use, and I've always meant to buy, frostybowlz. It keeps the contents of the bowl at a cold temp. That would be much better for food safety. 

If you left a succession of raw food in separate frostybowlz, that could work to feed your kitty. One bowl has cold raw food that your cat can immediately graze on. When she's done with that bowl, your cat can move to the next bowl with semi-frozen raw, and when your cat finishes the semi-frozen, the bowl with the frozen raw will be ready to be eaten, and so on...

You can order frostybowlz online. Hope that works for you. 

Hopefully you'll get better solutions!

The frostybowlz seem like they would work. Or, you can get an automatic feeder with an ice pack in it to open a new part every 2 hours (or whatever you think would work).

I don't see any reason that a cooked homemade food would spoil any faster than canned food

.

Thank you guys! I didn't know products like that existed! Speaking with the nutritionists I found out that as long as I can find a way to keep the food at around 40-45 degrees it would stay safe, even exposed to air. So I am going to test some of these products to see how long they can keep food cold. Since it's such a tiny amount of food I'm pretty hopeful it will keep it chilled long enough. And I believe that homemade cooked food will still spoil faster than canned since there are no preservatives. I just don't want to take any real chances since she has had food poisoning and infection in the past from bad food. I also ordered the Cat Mate C500, which comes with 2 ice packs and can be set to rotate her food every 2 hours. I'm not sure if the ice pack set up in that will be good enough to keep the food chilled vs a frozen open aired bowl like the frostybowlz (which I could just put a larger portion in and she'd free feed on during those hours). But I will test them out with a food thermometer over different time periods and find out.