OT: Cat throwing up food

[cfwb]

Vomiting can be a sign of something serious (my first cat would just vomit up stomach acid/bile, and it turned out she had cancer in her intestines) or eating too fast, or a hairball, or stomach sensitivity. You may have to experiment a while to figure out what is wrong.

[Carol K]

Yes, if a cat vomits bile, you definitely need to go to the vet. Precious has never vomited bile.

[Dancing Queen]

Originally Posted by michl43

I suspect she's eating too fast or too much. Can anyone tell me how to portion control of the dry food?

We bought a Wireless Whiskers cat feeder. Each of our three cats wears an ID chip on their collar so the feeder can identify them. For three days, the feeder tracks how much each cat eats, then you decide if you want them to stay at 100% (to maintain weight) or reduce to 90% or 80% (to lose weight).

The two healthy-weight cats don't have restrictions on how much they can eat in a day, but the feeder doors close if they eat too much at one time. Kitty vomit used to be a weekly event, but they haven't thrown up once from overeating since we got the feeder three months ago. (Our overweight cat has also lost significant belly pudge with the 90% setting.)

The feeder can be found at http://wirelesswhiskers.com/default.html The initial programming is a little tricky, but I can't recommend it enough for helping kitties not overeat while still maintaining a free-feeding environment.

[PhyllisG]

Wow I never heard of the wireless feeder. Do they have them for people? I can only imagine the look on the cat's face when the door shuts! Great for helping a cat to lose weight.

[cataddict]

Originally Posted by PhyllisG

Wow I never heard of the wireless feeder. Do they have them for people? I can only imagine the look on the cat's face when the door shuts! Great for helping a cat to lose weight.

Lol Phyllis I could use one of those feeders. :-)

Thanks for mentioning the wireless feeder---I had never heard of it either. We have another cat who tends to be a little chubby and if we could figure out a way to make it work that feeder might help. We do not free feed---we put out the dishes 3 times per day.

One of our brood was vomiting regularly and it was a lot of trial and error with the vet's guidance to narrow it down to the food he was eating. He now eats hills ID and the only time he vomits now is if he gets to one of the others' food (which he likes but it doesn't like him apparently)