Vomiting from wet food.

Hi everyone. I'm new here. Thanks for welcoming me to the forum. I joined specifically for this issue , hoping I find an answer here. Seems I can't find the right answers searching the web.

There's a new cat in my household, he is the Oreo Bandit. He's 5 years old and I found him at a shelter one month ago. He vomits when he eats canned food, though not every time. He was in the shelter for 2 months, where I suppose he was fed dry food primarily if not solely, but I'm guessing he may  have gone his whole life eating only dry food.

He likes the wet food, I'm feeding him high quality grain free. He still gets dry food, no problem there. I'm figuring , with the wet food,  its a matter of too much too fast ?

I'm going to give him a tablespoon of wet food per meal and gradually increase week by week. However, that will not be enough to keep him from following me around for the next couple of hours. I would like to put a dish of dry food next to the wet food . Is it ok if they eat a 2 course meal of dry and wet food? Will mixing the two mess with his digestion?

is he vomiting from eating too fast? is it immediate?

Hi there.  Welcome to TCS

I'm thinking it might be a specific ingredient in the canned food that is causing his vomiting, rather than the canned food itself, since it doesn't happen every time.  Do you feed different "flavors" and/or brands of canned food?  How MUCH have you been feeding when he vomits?  And I second JSl24's question as to if it's immediately after he eats, or a few hours later?

In answer to your question, yes, it perfectly ok to feed canned and dry next to each other.  They DO digest slightly differently, but it shouldn't really  hurt anything, especially if it's short term as you gradually increase the wet food .  I know I cannot give one of mine too much in one sitting or he will immediately upchuck his entire meal.  He can have just under a 3 oz can, but any more or that's it ( ), so I try to only give him 2 oz - 3 times a day. 

A couple of times it was immediate. I'm not so sure that he's eating too fast. He seems awkward in eating the canned, it takes him awhile to complete it but he may still be wolfing it down when he gets ahold of it. I've given him different flavors and brands. The last time he vomited,yesterday, he'd eaten fish flavor. A little over half a three oz. can. He really liked it, maybe too much. I'm so happy to see him eating,after a few weeks of him being apprehensive, that I may have been too generous with the portions. Today,shredded chicken is on the menu. So far,two very small feedings and no vomit. Now I'm concerned that I haven't fed him sufficiently. I've been very worried that this might be a health issue, undetected by the people at the shelter. If it is just a matter of transition of diet. I am relieved. Thanks very much for your replies.

I agree with all mrsgreenjeans' suggestions and questions so there isn't much to add! I do want to say, though, that our two cats we adopted from a shelter had significant "food issues" for a while: also eating too fast, too much, and the like, with occasional regurgitation. A year later, I still feed them small meals sometimes because they get over-eager. Our cats were skinny and underfed when we adopted them so I'm sure they felt insecure about their food.

Anyway, I think you're doing the right thing, @Pazzo, to feed the Bandit in small meals. If it's at all practical to feed him lots of small meals, at least temporarily, that might be a good approach. And then, of course, if you find that small meals of, say, fish cause problems, well, then maybe it was the fish and not the portion size. Let's hope the portions will help because it can be complicated to figure out food sensitivities!

Good luck and welcome to the Cat Site! The Oreo Bandit is a handsome cat.

I would definitely keep a log of what you're feeding him (brand, type, ie chicken, fish, beef), then you will have a better idea of what might be causing this issue.  Some brands are "richer" than others too, so it could simply be that. 

Keep us posted