Why a cat vomits food every day

However, some cats are not ready for this type of feeding. If the cat immediately eats the daily quota and remains hungry for the day, you should feed him in portions. In order to avoid vomiting from eating too much food too quickly, try to give food in several portions: 2 times in the morning and 2-3 times in the evening in small portions. This approach to feeding the cat will avoid physiological vomiting immediately after eating.

Cat vomiting after eating – possible causes.

The occurrence of vomiting in pets is a signal of malfunctions in the body systems. Ejection of gastric contents – a peculiar defense mechanism, arising from a variety of factors.

In representatives of the cat family, the department of the brain responsible for vomiting attacks is remarkably developed. Sometimes the owner notes this phenomenon when the cat vomits foam or undigested food particles.

The gag reflex results from the simultaneous contraction of the muscle fibers of the stomach and diaphragm, changing the intra-abdominal pressure. As a result of muscle contraction, food from the stomach rises sharply up the esophagus.

Vomiting is a defensive reaction, so it should not go unheeded by the owner. It is important to understand the causes of vomiting and only then prescribe treatment. Independently identify the cause of vomiting in a cat is quite problematic and without the qualified help of a specialist can not do.

Manifestations and causes

In the clinical practice of veterinarians there are cases where vomiting in cats is a one-time phenomenon. But it also happens that the eruption of gastric contents occurs with enviable regularity, acquiring a chronic course.

An accurate diagnosis is necessary, because the condition of the pet may worsen, and if left untreated, the pathological process may be fatal. Symptoms that require the intervention of a veterinarian:

• Vomiting in a cat lasting several days;
• Frequent attacks of vomiting in the cat (several times a day);
• Cat vomiting after eating undigested food;
• The occurrence of vomiting in the cat, even without preceding meals;
• concomitant vomiting with drinking water;
• vomiting in a cat accompanied by admixtures of blood, mucus, bile, or other fluids in the spewed mass.

There are many causes of vomiting and spewing undigested food. The main factors why a cat vomits are:

• Diseases of the liver and kidney structures;
• Inflammatory processes in the pancreas;
• gastritis of a chronic nature;
• malignant and benign tumors of the digestive tract;
• parasitic diseases (helminthiasis), provoking inflammation in the mucous membranes of the digestive tract;
• intestinal obstruction;
• pathological processes in the large intestine;
• Severe intoxications of the body;
• Dirofilariosis (cardiac helminths);
• uremia and ketosis;
• highly contagious viral infections (diarrhea and vomiting are observed in the cat).

Rarely can the cause of vomiting be determined independently. But if there are helminths in the vomit, the cause is intestinal worm infestation and intoxication of the body as a result of their activities. If a cat vomits frequently, the cause may be intestinal obstruction, and if not treated promptly, the animal will die.

Causes that cause concern

If the cat regurgitated only a few times in the morning, you need not worry, but if the cat vomits almost every morning, it is worth contacting the veterinary clinic. The causes may be not only food poisoning, but also more serious problems with the cat's body, which may lead to serious consequences:

A special danger for cats and cats is vomiting blood. It is caused by tearing of the mucosa in the mouth or upper small intestine. Vomiting blood makes a cat vomit in the morning on an empty stomach due to various ulcers, tumors or the presence of a foreign body in the body.

What to do when a cat vomits foam?

If a pet is vomiting foam, it indicates not only improper nutrition, but also infectious respiratory diseases. The cause can be identified depending on the color of the foam:

• White. In this case, the foam is caused by various factors, the most innocuous of which is heartburn. However, white foam can be due to malnutrition or starvation of the animal, as well as due to adrenal diseases;
• Yellow. Indicates the presence of parasites in the cat's body. If not noticed in time and do not start treatment, the cat may have liver and kidney failure;
• Pink .. This color gives blood in the foam. This is when there is a risk of respiratory infections.

When cats vomit in the morning after water, it means that the cat's urinary ducts are blocked by stones or parasites. The cat is thirsty and drinks a lot of water, but it comes out with the vomit.

Only a specialist can give an accurate explanation of why the cat is vomiting. If regular vomiting occurs, immediately show your cat to the veterinarian. He will examine the animal, determine the diagnosis and prescribe the necessary treatment.

Vomiting variations

Vomit may contain more than just bits of undigested food. Depending on the "additional" components, a specific type of problem may be suspected.

• If vomiting white foam. It is not dangerous on its own, but if it persists it requires consultation with the veterinarian.
• Vomiting with a mixture of bile. This symptom indicates a problem with the gallbladder or liver. If the vomit contains bile and white foam in addition to bits of undigested food, the animal needs to be examined and receive specialized treatment.
• Vomiting with blood. The symptom indicates the development of a severe condition provoked by damage to the mucosa of the gastrointestinal tract. It is necessary to examine the cat's mouth. There is probably a wound in it, which is bleeding.
• Vomits green or yellow mass with greenish flecks. This is a symptom of severe pathology, or it may indicate a bowel obstruction. In this case, without the help of the vet can not do.

If a small kitten vomits – regardless of the composition of the vomit, the presence or absence of food in it – it must be shown to the doctor urgently.

Probable causes

The reasons why a cat vomits after eating may be the following:

Improperly formulated diet

The reason why a cat vomits after eating may be due to his diet. The animal should get quality protein, which provides him with a feeling of full satiety. Otherwise, the pet may simply get rid of poor quality food, cleaning the stomach in the most physiological way possible: it simply vomits.

To avoid the development of vomiting attacks caused by bad food, the fluffy's diet should be handled with the utmost care. It is best to buy food of premium or super-premium class, as they contain all the necessary substances and trace elements. And, very importantly, it is made of real meat.

Budget foods contain no more than 2 – 3% of natural meat. The rest mass is represented by by-products, which have practically no biological value – skin, feathers, veins, heads and beaks.

The body of the animal may refuse to accept such food and respond with a gag reflex.

When buying food, it is necessary to study its composition. If it contains preservatives, dyes, propylene glycol and ethoxyquin, you should refuse to buy it. It will not give anything useful to the pet.

Food intolerance

Sometimes a cat vomits after eating undigested food due to his body not accepting certain foods. For example, the pet may be lactose intolerant. And then after consuming whole cow's milk he also vomits.

More often than not, nausea develops when the pet is fed natural food. If diagnosis confirms this, it makes sense to transfer the pet to specialized dry food that completely eliminates likely allergens and controversial components.

Overeating and absorbing food too quickly

A cat sometimes vomits from overeating and this is caused by the special structure of the esophagus. It is located horizontally. When food comes in quickly or in large quantities, the animal's body may block the sphincter that opens the entrance to the stomach. In this case, the cat is forced to get rid of excess food, by regurgitating it. As a rule, he vomits some time after eating.

9 reasons why a cat vomits after eating

1. The cat ate too much.

Some people prefer to feed their cats in portions throughout the day. Others like to have food in the bowl at all times so that the cat can eat as much as he wants and when he wants. Well, and they don't have to think about feeding their pet every time.

Cats can get excited about such an offer I and carelessly devour food. This can lead to vomiting right after a meal, because there isn't much room in a cat's stomach.

You might consider an electronic feeder with a timer that dispenses less food at a certain time.

2. The cat was eating or drinking too fast

Another common reason why a cat vomits after eating is eating too fast . Pay attention to the vomit. Does it still look like undigested food, but mixed with liquid? This is a sure sign that your cat is eating too fast.

This often becomes a problem in families with multiple cats when one cat regularly eats the food of the other cats, causing unhealthy eating habits and overeating. This is another situation where an electronic feeder can solve the problem where the cat needs to eat quickly to get food. You may also want to consider feeding cats in separate places so they feel safe enough to eat at their own pace.

3. Hairballs.

Hairballs resemble cat vomit from food, and you can expect your kitty to regurgitate them every two weeks. It is considered normal for a cat to swallow its own hair while licking, and sometimes cats vomit up clumps of this hair.

If your cat often vomits hairballs, your veterinarian may suggest treatments such as diet or special care to reduce the amount of hair ingested.

Call your veterinarian if.

If you notice your cat vomiting after eating and any of the following symptoms are present, call your veterinarian immediately:

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Why is the cat vomiting? The first thing to know is.

There are many possible causes, but first let's answer a few questions:

• How often does the cat vomit – how many times per day, per week?
• Does vomiting occur after eating or after returning from a walk?
• When was our cat last screened? Is she an outdoor cat or not?
• Is there only water in the vomit or is there digested food, bile or plant debris, grass, hair?
• Has the vomiting started or increased after a change in food type?
• Is our cat vaccinated regularly?
• Is the vomiting accompanied by other symptoms such as diarrhea, blood in the feces, lethargy, lack of appetite, irritability?
• Has the cat been given any medication?

Answering these questions will make it easier to figure out the cause of your cat's vomiting – whether it's a natural symptom or the beginning of an illness.

Possible reasons why a cat vomits

Clogging

The cause of vomiting is natural. Vomiting is necessary to rid the digestive tract of hairballs. Vomiting may include grass and hair ingested earlier during licking.

Eating grass irritates the cat's digestive tract and triggers the gag reflex. Some of the grass cleans the digestive tract like a toothbrush, pushing lint into the intestines and anus.

If hair lumps bother us, we can introduce a special food for long-haired cats, or use a regular paste to get the hair out. Also, feeding the cat wet food or meat helps maintain proper intestinal peristalsis and get rid of hair in the stomach.

Food intolerance

In this case, the food is not suitable for the cat and should be changed. Even the best food may simply not work for a particular cat, and switching to a different type of food will help.

With food intolerance, vomiting often occurs after a meal, contains digested food and is sometimes accompanied by symptoms of feces with blood.

Eating too greedily.

In this case, vomiting usually occurs immediately after a meal, with the cat eating too much and too fast. This sometimes happens with cats who are hungry when they are kittens or who love to eat. Tip: Replace the food with one with larger croutons to get the cat to chew rather than swallow the croutons whole. It's also helpful to introduce food puzzles or special bowls for voracious cats with maze-shaped bottoms.

The solution is to buy special bowls and toy bowls for voracious cats, in which the cat has to exert a little effort to get food, and – feed quite often, but in small portions. Do not leave food within reach of the cat all the time.

Worm infestation

Worms, such as roundworms, may be present in the vomit. Worms in the cat's intestines poison it with their metabolic products, irritate the intestinal walls, move to the lungs in the process of their development, causing whooping and alternating swallowing or gagging reflexes. We deworm outdoor cats every 3 months and non-outdoor cats every 6 months.

What causes yellow vomiting?

You may have noticed that your cat's vomit is sometimes yellow in color. You may have even guessed that it is related to bile. But what is bile and why does vomit turn yellow?

Bile is a digestive fluid produced in the liver and goes into the intestines to help break down food for digestion.

The yellow color of bile is caused by the pigment bilirubin. Bilirubin and the green pigment biliverdin give the poop its "famous" brown color.

This biological characteristic is also inherent in us humans: when you vomit, you can see streaks of yellow bile.

Vomiting is a natural reaction to gastrointestinal irritation, and when the stomach contents are emptied, they naturally take some bile with them.

7 reasons why your cat vomits yellow fluid

1. Empty stomach.

Many things can cause your cat to vomit yellow bile, but the most common reason is simply an empty stomach.

When there is no food in the stomach to break down, the bile becomes concentrated and irritates the stomach mucosa, causing nausea and vomiting.

This is usually observed in the morning because the cat has not eaten since the evening. If your cat only occasionally vomits yellow bile and has no other symptoms, this is probably the cause.

2. Hairballs.

Cats spend much of their time licking their hair. While this allows them to stay clean, it also means that they can ingest a lot of hair.

Hair is poorly digested and can form balls, or trichobezoars, in the stomach. These balls can cause vomiting, nausea, and loss of appetite.

You will usually see hairs in the vomit in this case. If your cat is vomiting yellow fluid and has long hair, a hairball is likely the cause.

Brush your cat regularly, as this will help reduce the amount of hair she ingests during grooming.

Make sure the cat always has fresh, clean water to drink.

3. Gastritis

Another common cause of yellow bile vomiting is gastrointestinal problems such as gastritis or inflammatory bowel disease. These diseases can cause the stomach to produce too much acid, which irritates the gastric mucosa and prevents proper absorption of nutrients.

Acute gastritis in cats usually presents with vomiting and/or diarrhea. In most cases, this condition resolves within 24 hours without any medical intervention. However, if your cat's signs of gastritis persist longer than 24 hours, it is important to see a veterinarian as soon as possible to determine the need for medical attention.

Chronic gastritis, on the other hand, can last much longer, if it goes away at all. Cats with chronic gastritis may experience vomiting and/or diarrhea for weeks or even months.

Causes of vomiting in cats

In most cases, vomiting in cats is attributed to gastrointestinal dysfunction. However, there are many more reasons for the malaise. For convenience, they are divided into two main groups: physiological and pathological.

Physiological causes of vomiting are caused by natural cleansing of the body from unnecessary or unfamiliar foods. Purification of the body occurs against a background of a lack of enzymes necessary for digestion, or irritation of the gastric mucosa. If you adjust the cat's diet and feed it digestible food, the vomiting will go away on its own. There is no need to treat the cat with medication.

– A sudden change in food. If a cat eats the same thing and then tries something new, the body reacts with vomiting and indigestion. The pathological process is associated with a lack of enzymes needed to break down unfamiliar food.

– Hunger. Prolonged interruption of food intake provokes the active production of gastric juice, which corrodes the walls of the stomach and provokes irritation of the mucosa. The cat vomits before or during meals with white or light yellow foam. Such vomiting is called hunger vomiting.

– Overeating. If a cat eats more than it can digest and swallows large chunks of food, some of what it has eaten will spew out along with gastric juice and foam. When overeating, the cat may vomit both during and immediately after eating. The problem is solved by a strict dosage of a single serving.

– Lumps of hair. All cats are very clean, so they lick themselves after every meal or contact with another animal or person. As a result, hairballs accumulate in the stomach, which irritate the mucosa and provoke vomiting.

Usually a cat vomits fur once and the animal's condition quickly stabilizes. But if the vomiting turns brown, see your veterinarian immediately. It is likely that the hair has blocked the intestinal lumen, and only surgery can get rid of it.

Symptoms of vomiting in cats

The main sign of nausea in cats is salivation, drooling, the cat "chomping", licking, often swallowing saliva. Nausea may be accompanied by a gag reflex or be unproductive.

A variant of the norm is increased salivation when riding in a car (cats also get carsick), some saliva may be excreted from pleasure when the cat purrs, pats you and shows extreme satisfaction. "Chomping" and constant tongue movements can be a symptom of dental disease. And inability to swallow and salivation can be a symptom of a dangerous infection, rabies.

Vomiting in cats can be confused with belching (regurgitation) and with coughing. If in doubt, videotape the process and show it to your doctor at your appointment. In true vomiting, the cat assumes a characteristic posture, it archs, its abdominal wall muscles contract, vomiting may be accompanied by specific guttural sounds, the owners describe it with the words "cat vomits".

Varieties of vomiting

Earlier we tried to describe the most common causes of vomiting in cats. Let's try to look at the different types of vomiting and speculate for which diseases they are characteristic.

• Vomiting white foam. White foam is gastric juice and saliva. Such vomiting is found in gastritis. It is white foam vomiting – a typical variant of "hungry" vomiting in cats.
• Vomiting transparent mucus. Most likely in such vomit masses is dominated by saliva. Severe nausea and salivation can be with gastritis, pancreatitis, and foreign bodies in the oral cavity.
• Vomiting gray masses.. Take a closer look, you will most likely notice wool in such a mass. Such vomiting may be a variant of the norm, if it does not happen often and is not accompanied by a lack of appetite and apathy. If vomiting gray mass is more frequent, the cat may be itching and licking too much, perhaps it has abnormal shedding.

• Vomiting green liquid. Such vomiting can be a dangerous symptom of intestinal obstruction in cats, especially if the vomit has a strong foul odor.
• Vomiting with blood, vomiting red fluid. Scarlet blood in the vomit, most often a sign of burst blood vessels in the esophagus with severe tenesmus (straining when vomiting) and repeated vomiting. This vomiting can also be when blood is swallowed from the oral cavity (diseases of the gums, oral mucosa, neoplasms in the mouth).
• Black vomiting. Vomiting the color of coffee grounds is digested blood in the vomit. Such vomiting can be in severe diseases of the stomach – ulcers, neoplasms.
• Vomiting yellow fluid .. It is vomiting with a mixture of bile. It happens with cholecystitis, cholestasis (diseases of the gallbladder), with diseases of the liver, stomach and duodenum.

Treat simple cases at home

Start by reviewing your diet. If the pet is overeating or starving, the number of feedings and the breaks between them should be changed.

Purchase sprouted oats or special bezoar-dissolving treats to stimulate hair excretion. Never get grass from the street – it is often sprayed with chemicals during rat poisoning.

In case of pregnancy or a recent vaccination the nausea will pass on its own, so all that remains is to observe the animal's well-being. If the cat is vomiting more and more often – ask your veterinarian what to do. Preparations recommended for first aid and peculiarities of their use can be told right over the phone. This is very convenient if you cannot visit the veterinarian in the near future.

Position the pet's head just below the rest of the body. This will prevent backflow of the masses into the esophagus. Do not give antiemetics under any circumstances, as this will aggravate the intoxication of the body.

Regidron is good for restoring the water balance, No-shpa is good for eliminating painful spasms, and Enterosgel or Smecta is good for eliminating toxic products. In addition, chamomile decoction is given, which has a beneficial effect on the mucosa. All the above drugs are given strictly after the doctor's permission and indication of the required dosage.

To restore the damaged gastric membrane will help starvation diet. Its duration should not exceed 2 days in an adult animal and 1 day in a kitten. In the first days, the diet should consist of mucous porridge, light broths and vegetable puree. When dry feeding, a line of foods recommended for gastrointestinal diseases will do – ideally, it is better to change the dry food to pates or pouches.

Preventing gastrointestinal problems

To prevent new cases of vomiting in the cat will help to adjust the diet and prevention of diseases affecting the gastrointestinal tract. To do this, it is necessary to:

1. Avoid overeating and starvation. Follow your veterinarian's recommended rates and avoid long breaks between feedings.
2. Keep hazardous substances out of reach of pets. In addition to household chemicals and medications, keep trash cans, which attract curious whiskers with their scent, out of reach.
3. Avoid toys with small parts that can be swallowed.
4. Adhere to annual vaccinations and quarterly worming treatments.
5. Visit the veterinarian at least once a year. Routine examinations and basic tests can detect hidden abnormalities.
6. Avoid stressful situations. Be sure to use anti-stress medication before a trip in transport or moving.

Remember, it is better to consult a veterinarian for all questions that arise, rather than trusting the advice of relatives or acquaintances. In most cases, self-treatment leads to an aggravation rather than a solution to the problem.

If a cat or cat vomits – do not panic and try to assess the situation. If you follow preventive measures, the probability of pathological causes is extremely small, so you can handle the situation yourself.

But the owners of kittens should be more attentive. Dehydration in babies occurs much faster, so to be safe, it is better to confirm your assumptions at the veterinary clinic.

This article is for information purposes only. Contact your vet!