What causes my cat to puke after eating?
Believe it or not, this is a typical issue for many cat owners. You are not alone yourself.
You’re familiar with the situation. Everyone has been there:
Your cat is constantly meowing. It won’t leave you alone and continues to grind against your legs. It darts toward its empty food dish whenever you walk in its immediate area, as if to imply that it wants food.
When you eventually fill up its feeding dish, it rushes up to it and begins consuming the food like there’s no tomorrow.
You hear that all-too-familiar sound of your cat belching only minutes after it has satisfied its appetite.
Uh oh! Your cat is about to throw up!
It’s too late for you to change anything.
However, as soon as your cat has accomplished its duty, it flees the crime scene. It had retired to its safe haven inside the home within seconds.
It’s almost as though your cat is embarrassed about what it has done.
Could My Cat Be Vomiting Due To Hairballs?
If your cat vomits after every meal, it might be an indication that a hairball has become caught in its oesophagus or stomach.
- What is a hairball, you ask?
A hairball is just a large bundle of fur that has been firmly twisted and knotted together. Consider a ball of yarn. That’s pretty much how it appears and how it’s put together.
Some cats have a tendency to vomit hairballs after eating.
That’s an excellent question. The solution comes in learning a little bit about feline instinctual behaviour.
If you’ve ever spent any time with a cat, you’ll know that grooming is something they do intuitively and persistently. Cats seem to be fascinated with grooming themselves. It seems to be all they do. Your cat might be chasing a mouse and then halt in the middle of the hunt to groom themselves.
Cats, on the other hand, are quite careful about keeping themselves clean and well groomed.
Unfortunately, this innate activity has a negative side effect: they vomit.
Allow me to explain.
Every time your cat licks itself, there’s a chance it’ll lick up part of its loose hair. It might just be one or two strands of fur. Because of their sticky nature, they get attached to the cat’s tongue and are eaten. Now compound this by hundreds of tongue strokes, and it may unintentionally consume a lot more fur follicles, all of which are collecting in its stomach.
Normally, you’d assume this would be no great problem. If a cat (or any other person or animal) swallows fur or hair, it should travel through the digestive tract and out through nature’s excretory mechanism, correct?
However, if you’ve ever had hair block a shower drain, you know that it’s possible for fur to become lodged in a cat’s digestive system.
And when this happens, just one thing is certain: A large fur ball develops inside its digestive track, whether in the oesophagus, stomach, or intestines. And when this happens, it might lead to a significant issue:
Complications Due To Hairballs
It may create an impediment, preventing any other food from flowing through.
And this might cause problems for your cat!
So, the most reasonable explanation to the question: Why does my cat vomit after eating, is because there is nowhere for the food to go, so your cat automatically regurgitates it.
How Do I Know That My Cat Is Vomiting Due To Hairballs And Not Something Else?
Examining the vomit specimen is one of the telling symptoms that your cat is vomiting due to hairballs and not anything else. I know that seems nasty, but all you have to do is take a quick look at the vomit before picking it up:
If you see strands of fur bundled up in a tube-like or cylindrical shape, your cat has likely eaten a hairball!
Other Non-Visual Cues That Your Cat Has Hairballs
Other non-visual signs that your cat has a hairball in its stomach are largely behavioural:
- Perhaps your cat is experiencing a decrease of appetite. Simply put, your cat does not want to eat as much as it is used to.
- Your cat is just vomiting after every single meal.
So What Can I Do About Cat Hairball Vomiting? How Can I Treat It?
There are many options for treating your cat’s hairballs:
1: Reducing your cat’s food intake temporarily may help prevent vomiting.
My cat would puke almost every time she ate. So I practically forced her to go on a “diet.” At each meal, I purposefully placed less food in her feeding dish. In addition, I intentionally leave extra interval between meals. My cat’s vomiting finally stopped. She would vomit less often. The vomiting then gradually stopped!
2: Changing Your Cat’s Diet Can Aid in Hairball Prevention
I discovered that anytime I fed my cat wet cat food, she became quite enthusiastic. She’d devour it in no time. She’d gobble it up. The poor creature would then puke up the whole meal barely minutes after consuming it.
So I stopped feeding her wet cat food and switched her to a dry cat food diet. The vomiting ceased.
As a test, I decided to give her wet cat food after a few weeks. She immediately vomited again!
So it was either a dietary intolerance or an issue with the meal itself. If she had hairballs in her stomach, the fact that she ate so much in one sitting was too much for her.
I tried feeding her less moist cat food as an additional trial, and it appeared to help.
Your mileage may vary now. What worked for me may not work for you. In the instance of this particular cat, she was too eager and consuming enormous amounts of wet cat food at once.
3: Provide your cat with specially formulated hairball control cat food.
Rather of giving your cat its regular food, you might consider switching to hairball management cat food. This is available in dry pellet form, just like any other dry cat food.
Alternatively, you may offer your cat hairball control cat treats.
A third option is to give your cat hairball control gels.
Each of the alternatives listed above is particularly prepared with elements that promote digestion and the breakdown of those obstinate hair follicles in your cat’s stomach.
You may attempt homemade hairball cures for cats, such as olive oil, if you want to try something a little more DIY.
You may feed it to your cat on its own or mix it in with the food he or she normally consumes.
Why Does My Cat Vomit After Eating?
Hopefully, this article has thrown some light on why your cat vomits after eating so regularly.
Experiment with the solutions listed above. Please let me know what you think. Have you tried any of them, and if so, how well did they work for you?
Is this the solution to the issue, “Why does my cat vomit after eating?”