Reptile & Amphibian Forums

HI, everyone,

Luna has changed her eating habits - again. And for the first time, she threw up today!! AARRGGHH!!!

This is a really long post because I am a scientist who believes in observing carefully and documenting everything. Please be patient and read it through because I do need your advice.

Luna arrived here a 5 weeks ago from the shelter perfectly happy to graze on Science Diet Original Adult crunchies at every moment! The little piggy. I gave her a little bit of wet food for a treat (Fancy Feast or Friskies)- she was VERY happy and still grazed on her crunchies. She then began to overeat her crunchies, and as a few of you know, I considered switching her to a diet food. I DID NOT switch her to a diet food, however, deciding that a change in diet might be too stressful for her since she had only been with me about 3 1/2 weeks. Over the past week, however, she has pretty much stopped eating her crunchies. Little by little she has taken in fewer and fewer crunchies each day. If she is hungry at times other than when I give her wet food, she walks to the bowl, sees the crunchies, realizes there is no wet stuff and she leaves without eating - or drinking. She urinates well and seems to defecate daily.

I am not feeding her nearly enough wet food for her body weight because it was supposed to be a snack only. Once in the a.m. and once in the p.m I am giving her about a third of a can of those little cans of Fancy Feast (not much) and a quarter can of Friskies that is a bigger can to start with. Those amounts are not nearly what is required. She also gets eight treat pieces a day (24 calories) which is 10% of her total food requirement. She weighs about 9 pounds and she is not too long or tall.

The past two days she has been a bit lethargic and looked very "out of it" in the eyes, but she still played with her string toy and attacked furry mice and catnip bag. But she ate only half her wet food and refused her treats!!! Her ears and her nose were bright red - she has really pink hairless ears. In the middle of the night last night she did not harass me to get up to feed her at 3:30 a.m. and hung around me like clinging vine instead of playing psycho kitty like normal. She kept making weird movements with her mouth - opening it wide with a smack (kinda like when we human have peanut butter stuck in our mouths.) She did that several times and then just put her head down and rested. It did not sound like she was trying to hack up a furball.

In the morning (that would be 4:30 am!!) she ate her wet food in two sittings and seemed OK looking out the window at the birds.

So, today, I come home and she has thrown up a little pile of about ten quasi-moistened crunchies!! AACCCKK!! It is the first time she has thrown up!

She wanted to eat wet food as soon as I came in the door, so I gave it to her with a few new Pounce salmon treats and she seemed OK. She kept bringing me her toys, so we played vigorously with string and birdies for about 30 minutes. (Until her hooman got tired!)

SOO... here are a few questions I could use your help with...

1) Should I be worried? Or call the vet?
Or is she just a bit under the weather...

2) For the next week or so, should I feed her more wet stuff according to her body weight requirements and just let her deide what to do about the crunchies? (But I really cannot afford to feed her only wet foods forever.)

3) Should I eliminate the wet stuff now and see if she will eat the dry stuff when she gets hungry enough (this seems cruel to me)

Other ideas??

Thanks for reading this and responding.

Lisa
(Luna's panicky human. Can you imagine if I ever had a human baby!! OMG! And I thought my own mother was overprotective!!!)

Well, the smacking and refusal to eat her treats or dry food could indicate tooth problems. Can you look in her mouth? If you see red lines along the gum lines it is a sign of gingivitis. The fact that she hocked up nearly unchewed dry food is another indicator of possible dental problems. Unlike gingivitis, there are other dental problems that aren't readily visibile, so a vet visit might be in order.

My own pudglet, Sadie, gets about 1/6 of a 5.5 ounce can twice a day and has about 1/4 cup of Science Diet morning and evening. Sometimes she doesn't eat all the dry but she normally grazes on it throughout the day (and night). She's a bit smaller than Luna at about 7 lbs so I think your over all diet plan is good... but some cats do prefer the canned and will then convince you that they must have the canned and can no longer eat the dry food.

Good Luck and keep us posted on Luna!

I am not sure what to tell you. I know that I stopped feeding canned food because it my cats sick. Mya (the dog) had to have canned food when she had lyme dieases. It was the only way I could get her to eat her pill. The problem started when I stopped the wet food. She refused it eat her dry. I had to mix the wet and dry together for a while and I gradually reduced the amount of wet until I was feeding just dry again. Now I only feed dry to all my animals.

Good Luck,
Jaime
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Jaime owned by
Mya the dog
and the cats:Crash, Moxie, Gabby and sometimes Tucker

I had a cat who did the smacking right before she hurled a hairball. So Luna might have just had an upset tummy.

You might do as Abymom suggested and look for signs of redness in her gums, however and get her in if you see anything abnormal there.

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Smile, it will make them wonder what you are up to!