binge and purge. dry food reccomendations?

Hey everyone,

Anyone else have a cat who eats their dry food too fast and immediately vomits up whole food? cello is one of those cats. generally he is on a wet food diet, however I try to keep dry food in his diet for when I'm away.... He has a sensitive stomach and switching foods is difficult as well, another reason I keep him on some dry. I generally give him tiny handfuls a couple times a day. His bowls are elevated with balls in them so he has to eat around them, but he still barfs up his dry food a couple times a week.

I think if I could find kibble that was big enough for him to HAVE to chew I'd be in better shape. Any ideas? Right now he is own orijens and wellness, and predominately wellness wet...... however I'm willing to switch to a dry food with larger kibbles.....

Suggestions?

Try raising his dish.
Spaz used to do that with wet food until I raised her dish.

Originally Posted by Arlyn

Try raising his dish.
Spaz used to do that with wet food until I raised her dish.

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The OP already said the dish was elevated.

I feed Orijen as well and my understanding is that it is a rich food and may possibly be too rich for your kitty. Maybe try cutting out the Orijen and just feed the other dry for awhile to see if that makes a difference.

have you tried a flat plate??

yes it could be too rich , how long on this mix??

My Frodo is that exact way. The wet diet does work better. I did feed Orijen dry but like you I was looking for a larger shaped kibble in hopes he would crunch it. I have some dry eaters so I have to feed something that works for all.

The best for mine was California Natural Chicken and Rice. Larger kibble and easier on his digestive system. All of the crew love this one the best.

For wet he gets Wellness grain free and PetGuard for the most part. There are a few other brands of wet that I use for variety.

I use a flat small salad plate and elevate it on an old phone book. Good luck.

Gus did that if he wasn't free fed. If he went even an hour without food he would think he was starving to death and would scarf the food down so fast he would puke it all back up again. If he had a constant supply of food (I'm talking having to refill the constant feeder dish thing before it was empty) he didn't do that.

My alpha male Stumpy was nicknamed "Captain Bulemia" for years because he did that. It stopped on its own a few years ago. I really don't think its the size of the kibbles. Stumpy is now completely toothless and cannot chew his food before he swallows. With 2 dry food choices out, a large kibble and a small kibble, he "sucks" down the large kibble (Maxcat Chicken).

What changed a few years ago? I started to give him as much wet food as he would eat. He no longer attacks the dry because he has an alternative to it.

Originally Posted by Yosemite

The OP already said the dish was elevated.

I feed Orijen as well and my understanding is that it is a rich food and may possibly be too rich for your kitty. Maybe try cutting out the Orijen and just feed the other dry for awhile to see if that makes a difference.

Click to expand...

Hmmmm I will cut this out, but he does it more often actually when he just gets wellness, mostly *I think* because he has to chew the orijens a little bit more....

Originally Posted by sharky

have you tried a flat plate??

yes it could be too rich , how long on this mix??

Click to expand...

No I haven't tried a flat plate, I thought that would be worse. But i will! He has been on this mix since I've had him, so a year and a half now. Like I said though, he eats predominantly wet food, three times a day. Small handfuls of dry 3-5 times a day. Puking was almost daily when he was on dry alone when I first got him. Down to 1-2/2 weeks now that I have switched to wet mostly. I would keep him on ALL wet if it wasn't for that odd weekend I was away

Originally Posted by Skimble

My Frodo is that exact way. The wet diet does work better. I did feed Orijen dry but like you I was looking for a larger shaped kibble in hopes he would crunch it. I have some dry eaters so I have to feed something that works for all.

The best for mine was California Natural Chicken and Rice. Larger kibble and easier on his digestive system. All of the crew love this one the best.

For wet he gets Wellness grain free and PetGuard for the most part. There are a few other brands of wet that I use for variety.

I use a flat small salad plate and elevate it on an old phone book. Good luck.

Click to expand...

Ill try califonia natural! thanks...... he does have a sensitive tummy

Originally Posted by Momofmany

My alpha male Stumpy was nicknamed "Captain Bulemia" for years because he did that. It stopped on its own a few years ago. I really don't think its the size of the kibbles. Stumpy is now completely toothless and cannot chew his food before he swallows. With 2 dry food choices out, a large kibble and a small kibble, he "sucks" down the large kibble (Maxcat Chicken).

What changed a few years ago? I started to give him as much wet food as he would eat. He no longer attacks the dry because he has an alternative to it.

Click to expand...

I have spent the last year and a half getting cello into good physical condition. he was HUGE when I got him. If I give him all the wet he'll eat, well he would never stop eating unfortunately.....

Coco did that when I first got her. I thought she had terrible food allergies until I finally realized she was just eating too darned fast! I think at first she pigged out on food just because she was just so happy to be in a stable environment. She stopped doing it after a short time.

If you are only concerned about him eating the dry too fast while you are away, can you use one or more of those electronic timed dealies to expose small amounts of food several times a day. Might not work since you have 2 cats though.

Originally Posted by lmunsie

If I give him all the wet he'll eat, well he would never stop eating unfortunately.....

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Hmmmmm........My Stumpy has always been a dry food eater and I had to force him over to wet when his teeth were extracted. He doesn't eat a lot of wet, just enough to dampen his appetite for the dry. So no, I don't have the problem of Stumpy eating too much wet. There are days when I'm happy to see him eat a few tablespoons of it.

Originally Posted by Yosemite

The OP already said the dish was elevated.

I feed Orijen as well and my understanding is that it is a rich food and may possibly be too rich for your kitty. Maybe try cutting out the Orijen and just feed the other dry for awhile to see if that makes a difference.

Click to expand...

I actually meant raised as in putting the dish on something, not putting obstacles in it.
I raised Spaz's dish about 4 inches and she stopped the binge and purge thing, placing things in the dish did nothing to stop it.

Elevating the dish keeps them from sucking up the food and swallowing air, which causes indigestion.
It can also help to prevent mega-esophagus, which can cause vomiting and regurgitation.

My dog inhales his food and I don't know if what we were told to do will work for a cat but it should. We were told to put something in his dish so he has to eat around it, like large marbles or golf balls. For a cat it would be smaller but not small enough to risk swallowing. What we ended up doing is putting the food on the floor or a large plate rather than a bowl, he has to work at picking up the pieces, they spread out as he tyrs to eat and it slows him down.

I heard somewhere you can try putting a ping pong ball or something a bit larger into their food dish so they have to eat around it and it will cause them to eat slower. Our dog did the same thing, she would eat so freaking fast she would puke it all back up again. We had to do that with her and it worked. We used a tennis ball with her, though. She was a Golden.

Willie did this, so I feed him on a plate now (and spread the food out) all it better. I feed California natural now and he has to chew that so that helps too.

My Clementine has been known to binge-and-purge. She's a Siamese, and our vet says that they have a tendency to bolt their food. Our vet is a big Siamese fancier and is a Siamese mom herself, several times over, so she must know her stuff. There is a special Royal Canin food made for Siamese, and the shape of the biscuits is supposed to help them actually chew their food. However, I haven't tried it with Clem, as the ingredients arent' in line with what she needs. The foods that she eats now, which are a smaller biscuit, seem to slow her down--she rarely vomits now.

That started to happen with Nikita so I switched her (after talking to her vet) to the Royal Canin Maine Coon formula. The kibbles in that are really big so she has to chew them, i.e they're too big to be swallowed down whole.

Anyway she does really well on that food.

Pooch used to vomit every morning when I put (dry) food in the bowl. Now I learned the "raise the dish" trick. Should it happen again, I'll have to try that. =)

Pumpkin has occasional early-morning-pukes (hence me posting at 7:30am when I'm a night person). It usually (but not always) looks like un-chewed whole kibbles. She usually gets Nature's Valley Instinct or Wellness Core. She also gets wet food, morning and evening, along with Zero (who eats anything that isn't bolted down or frozen in carbonite).

At first I thought it was because she was just eating too much too fast during the night, but at all other times of the day, she eats very daintily, crunching and chewing pretty thoroughly; she's fastidious! I figured out that if I clean their food dishes every day, she doesn't puke. Well, I clean /my/ food dishes every day, and if I didn't, I'd probably puke pretty regularly myself.

Originally Posted by Siggav

That started to happen with Nikita so I switched her (after talking to her vet) to the Royal Canin Maine Coon formula. The kibbles in that are really big so she has to chew them, i.e they're too big to be swallowed down whole.

Anyway she does really well on that food.

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I switched to this food for awhile when Toby was really bad. He's another food bolter, and throws up maybe once or twice a month, it depends on his mood I suppose . I do think the larger kibbles helped, but I did see him swallow them whole too, so who knows. If he was doing it more often, I'd look into more things I could do, but since it's not THAT much, I just deal with it.