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Urgent advice needed - throwing up small bone fragments on raw

eugenie

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Hi everyone,

Sorry this message is quite long, I'm looking for a bit of advice. I adopted my lovely 6-year old boy about 2 months ago and he is already my whole world. At the time, I was told that he had diarrhea when he got "stressed", and that when they had taken him to the vets he had been put on royal canin 33 sensible dry food. She said that he had always had soft poos. Naively I did not think much more into this I just thought his food obviously needed to be changed.

Once I brought him home I kept him on this food and he continued to have diarrhea (sometimes slightly more formed but always liquidy and varying between lots of small droplet poos and several big poos). I then tried feeding him only turkey mixed with probiotics and felini supplement to see if would calm his stomach, as I read online it is good to feed a bland diet to treat diarrhea and also the benefits of raw. I also gave him slippery elm bark and psyllium husk which did not seem to do a great deal. He definitely has allergies as when I tried mixing some salmon oil into his food he came up in a rash that went away within 2 days. Having discovered that turkey/chicken is actually a high allergen food, at the advice of the vets, I tried to switch him to pro plan hypoallergenic dry food to eliminate allergies (done so over a period of 7 days) - he hated this! refused to eat it and when he did eat it he would vomit between 12-3am. The ingredients in this are "rice starch, hydrolysed soya protein, soybean oil, minerals, hydrolysed digest, animal fat, fish oil" - so even though it is an allergy specific food I assume the rice/fish oil it does not agree with him. I am pretty sure he is also allergic to fish/turkey/chicken/some kind of grain in the food.

I have read several threads on here about rabbit/duck being best for potential IBD/allergies so I tried feeding him some of the grain-free leftover duck wet food his previous owner had been giving him which they had given to me whilst waiting for some raw food to arrive in the post. The wet food (Feringa pure meat duck - 97.8% duck (50% neck, 20% hearts, 20% liver, 10% stomach), 1.75% cottage cheese, 0.25% valerian, 0.1% spirulina, 0.1% minerals) also did not agree with him, which I assume is either because of the cottage cheese (why that is in there I do not know) or because of feeding him it too quickly without slowly introducing it even though he had been on it before.

His delivery of frozen premade raw rabbit/duck food finally arrived earlier this week and I tried him on the duck. Within a few hours, he did a normal poo!! He also has far less ear wax and eye gunk already and is now only pooing 2 times a day. However, after two days on the food (two days ago) and then again this morning at around 6am he has been throwing up small pieces of bone in liquid. This morning some of it was more jelly-like as though it had been partially digested. Does he just need time to adjust to digesting bone or should I take him off the food ASAP? Or is it because his stomach is empty in the morning and he needs feeding in the middle of the night – I'm currently feeding him at around 7.30am, 12.30, 5pm and 10pm and he wakes me up in the morning asking for food. He has not thrown up directly after eating, only in the morning as far as I am aware. I tried grinding the food up finer yesterday using my blender to make the bone pieces even smaller, although they were not huge to begin with. I also tried to pick some of the bone pieces out by hand to reduce the amount of bone but it is impossible to get it all out.

I'm at a bit of a loss of what to do as it is not like I have an alternative food to put him back on that doesn't cause him problems. I don't want to take him off raw as it is the first thing I have found that works for him and he also loves eating it, but obviously it cannot be good for him if he continues to throw up. It's also very difficult to get duck/rabbit without bone in the UK without spending an extortionate amount of money. I can't take him to the vet at the moment as they are only seeing emergency patients – I have rung them up several times and they do not think he needs to be seen urgently as he otherwise seems okay, they just told me to see if it continues.
 

Sheldon13

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How big are these bone fragments? When I was feeding raw the fragments were rarely bigger than a grain of rice.


Love and Sphynx ~ It’s all you need
 

Condo commando

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Wow this all sounds familiar. I adopted a 5 year old Sphynx with poop issues and transitioned him to raw.

It is true that they can vomit in the morning if they have an empty stomach; however, it's not a long wait between 10pm and 7:30am. Also, the liquid is just bile and saliva......I've never seen bone pieces and I've been feeding raw for a long time. I even buy some rabbit that has bigger pieces of bone and I do the same thing you tried.....I pick out the bigger pieces....but like you said it's impossible to get them all. And yet, it hasn't been a problem. (I try to buy fine ground, but sometimes it's not available.)

I have 2 suggestions for you to think about. First one is switch him to a "bland" diet for a few days to see if his tummy settles down. If you can get either a whole rabbit or pieces of rabbit, put the rabbit in a pot with water and simmer it on low temperature so it cooks slowly and the meat and cartilage comes off the bones. You can throw away the bones and any fat that flows to the top; just keep the meat and some of the liquid. You can feed this for a few days (no more than 1 week) to see if it settles his stomach. You can't feed this permanently because it's not "balanced" but for a week it's not a problem and you just want to see if it helps him.

The second suggestion is to grind the meat yourself into a finer consistency so that there are no bone pieces in it. Just like above, you are getting rid of the bone pieces so if he throws up, it can't be because of bone pieces. Hopefully your blender can do it so you don't have to buy anything else.....this is just for a week so you can see if the problem goes away. No point in buying a grinder if bones aren't the problem.

Personally I would lean to the first option because from what you describe, he could have inflammation from eating all kinds of things that didn't sit well with him. When you have inflammation, it doesn't matter what you feed, he might throw up.

Oh and if you are going to try the bland cooked rabbit, it would be good to fast him for 12-18 hours before starting.
 
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Condo commando

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Just want to mention this....if a cat is allergic to chicken and turkey, there's a pretty good chance he's allergic to duck too. I don't think I would feed a lot of duck anyway because it has more fat and that's the opposite of bland. Ideally for bland food you want lean meat. If you stick to just rabbit that would be ideal.

Down the road you can introduce something else but for now you want to keep things really basic.
 
Last edited:

eugenie

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May 16, 2020
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How big are these bone fragments? When I was feeding raw the fragments were rarely bigger than a grain of rice.


Love and Sphynx ~ It’s all you need

Yes the bone fragments are only around the size of rice if not smaller, they're only really noticeable because of how closely I am inspecting everything! The majority of it was also made smaller when I blended it. I noticed he actually left a couple of the bone pieces in the bowl like he was trying to eat around them.
 

eugenie

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May 16, 2020
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Wow this all sounds familiar. I adopted a 5 year old Sphynx with poop issues and transitioned him to raw.

It is true that they can vomit in the morning if they have an empty stomach; however, it's not a long wait between 10pm and 7:30am. Also, the liquid is just bile and saliva......I've never seen bone pieces and I've been feeding raw for a long time. I even buy some rabbit that has bigger pieces of bone and I do the same thing you tried.....I pick out the bigger pieces....but like you said it's impossible to get them all. And yet, it hasn't been a problem. (I try to buy fine ground, but sometimes it's not available.)

I have 2 suggestions for you to think about. First one is switch him to a "bland" diet for a few days to see if his tummy settles down. If you can get either a whole rabbit or pieces of rabbit, put the rabbit in a pot with water and simmer it on low temperature so it cooks slowly and the meat and cartilage comes off the bones. You can throw away the bones and any fat that flows to the top; just keep the meat and some of the liquid. You can feed this for a few days (no more than 1 week) to see if it settles his stomach. You can't feed this permanently because it's not "balanced" but for a week it's not a problem and you just want to see if it helps him.

The second suggestion is to grind the meat yourself into a finer consistency so that there are no bone pieces in it. Just like above, you are getting rid of the bone pieces so if he throws up, it can't be because of bone pieces. Hopefully your blender can do it so you don't have to buy anything else.....this is just for a week so you can see if the problem goes away. No point in buying a grinder if bones aren't the problem.

Personally I would lean to the first option because from what you describe, he could have inflammation from eating all kinds of things that didn't sit well with him. When you have inflammation, it doesn't matter what you feed, he might throw up.

Oh and if you are going to try the bland cooked rabbit, it would be good to fast him for 12-18 hours before starting.

Thanks for these suggestions! He hasn't eaten since yesterday evening (I took him off the raw and just gave him some of the wet food he was on before, which made his poo a bit runny but no vomiting overnight). I will go out now and try and find him some rabbit at the butchers to put him on for a few days and hopefully that will settle his stomach. If this works I will try again with the rabbit blended up as finely as possible. I hope it is just a case of his stomach being unsettled rather than him not being able to eat it outright!

Just want to mention this....if a cat is allergic to chicken and turkey, there's a pretty good chance he's allergic to duck too. I don't think I would feed a lot of duck anyway because it has more fat and that's the opposite of bland. Ideally for bland food you want lean meat. If you stick to just rabbit that would be ideal.

Down the road you can introduce something else but for now you want to keep things really basic.

This is also good to know! When I spoke to my vet yesterday they actually mentioned the possibility of trying him on hills d/d food which is duck and pea as it is supposed to be good for cats with digestive problems/allergies. I've read some good reviews on it but I am wary of switching out his food yet again and from what you say I'm not sure this will even work for him if he might have a problem with duck too. I'm planning on getting a full allergy test run on him in the future but this is not a possibility at the moment.
 

Condo commando

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Usually when you switch food they tell you to give it 2-3 months, so I wouldn't change again at this time.

The best way to test for allergies is to do an elimination trial. They call it elimination because you eliminate everything but one thing you will feed, such as rabbit. You feed this rabbit for 2 months and see how it goes.....hopefully your cat is fine, which means he's not allergic to rabbit. The next step would be to introduce another protein. Basically though you want to go 2 months every time you introduce a new protein.

Remember also a cat can have environment allergies, such as to pollen. Unfortunately if the environmental allergy flares up at the same time a new food is being tried, people incorrectly assume it's the food. For this reason, it's important to be aware what else is going on and not give up on a certain food too fast.

But the best place to start is with some gently cooked rabbit meat :)
 

Sheldon13

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Usually when you switch food they tell you to give it 2-3 months, so I wouldn't change again at this time.

I disagree with this a little bit. I would say go ahead and start on the rabbit since you know he has issues with other poultry.

Edit: looking back at your post it’s seems like you were indeed suggesting to start rabbit? I’m a little confused.

Love and Sphynx ~ It’s all you need
 

Condo commando

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I disagree with this a little bit. I would say go ahead and start on the rabbit since you know he has issues with other poultry.

Edit: looking back at your post it’s seems like you were indeed suggesting to start rabbit? I’m a little confused.

Love and Sphynx ~ It’s all you need
I thought he was on rabbit and I was saying to leave him on it.
 
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