Scarf & Barf or a sensitivity?

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Shenandoah

Shenandoah

Member Since 2015
Hey all,
Have a question about my civvie. He sometimes throws up after eating. It's usually when I give him one of the fish FFCs, but not the chicken or beef flavors.

He usually throws up within 5 minutes of eating (and usually on the lower end of that, often a minute or two). It's just a big brown slop that comes out.
And sometimes if I'm not available to clean it up right away he'll eat it back up and I just see remnants of it (insert a little barfing smiley here).

I'm inclined to think he's just scarfing it down way too fast because he likes the flavor, but how could I tell if he has some sort of sensitivity to one of the ingredients instead?
 
It could just that he REALLY likes that food so he scarfs it down. I've found the best way to avoid the s&b is to kind of smear the food around in the dish, it takes them longer to eat it that way. :cat:
 
Sounds an awful lot like scarf & barf, to me. I have a civvie who is very prone to it, and that is exactly his "modus operandi", too.
 
Try giving him just a small portion of the suspect food to see whether that will also trigger vomiting. Also watch the speed at which he eats the problem variety and also the speed at which he eats the chicken & beef varieties to see whether there's any difference. If he still barfs after the smaller portion, or if there is no difference in the speed with which he eats all the varieties then that could help you to distinguish between scarf/barf and potential adverse reaction.


Mogs
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I should have mentioned that he gets less than 1/4 can per meal, sometimes as little as 1/8 can (not to limit him, but rather to limit waste when he walks away from it - he rarely finishes what I give him so he has to get several meals throughout the day).

Is 1/4 can enough to scarf & barf from?
 
Just speculating here: if his digestive system is sensitive to something that amount may be sufficient to cause an upset.
 
I guess I'll try spreading it around for a while to force him to slow down, and if the problem persists then I'll remove those flavors from his diet.
 
Good plan. BTW, it'd be a good idea to check all the ingredients in the variety that's causing the trouble against the ingredients in the OK varieties. It might give you more of a clue of what might be an irritant if the 'slow down' technique doesn't solve the vomiting problem.


Mogs
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Yeah, I'm going to start keeping track of what I fed each time, so I can have a record. I've just noticed it being fish and not beef or poultry - but I feed 3 varieties of fish so I'm not even sure right now if he does it with all 3, or maybe 1 or 2 of them. I'm going to have to create him his own spreadsheet, lol.
 
I keep track of Saoirse's grub in her spreadsheet, plus weight, toileting, etc. Because of my PTSD my memory doesn't work any more and I struggle with even small amounts of information (any more and my brain panics and shuts down completely) so being able to use the search facility on the spreadsheet helps me a great deal when I need to check things.

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Thanks. I'll have to think about how to organize that. Since they get 6-7 meals/day, it can include up to 4 different cans/flavors.
 
Yes, sounds like scarf&barf to me. My cat BarneyBob used to do that. He wanted to bolt his food so he could go around and claim the other kitties' food.

Another possiblity: Lack of saliva. With humans, lots of drugs make the mouth very dry, and food, even single bites, can get 'stuck', and sometimes regurgitated. Does your civie-kitti take any medication? If so, look up the meds and see if there is a mention of side effects. If there's no literature on that for cats..and the meds have a human equivalent, look up the human side effects, to see if dry mouth is a problem.
 
He doesn't go get the other food. In fact, he doesn't finish his own. Just eats what he wants and walks away. I used to try to feed half a can at a time, and now am down to less than a quarter because he won't eat it all and too much was being wasted. Although he does tend to eat more of what I give when it's the fish flavors - so that supports the idea of scarf & barf.
He is not on any meds.
 
You know, years ago, after I married, hubby and I owned a restaurant, and we were hands-on owners, so setting up and serving food, and when the dishwasher didn't show up, washing dishes, took up a great deal of my day. Now, here I am, retired and a stay-at-home old lady and now I'm waiting tables again..only my customers are CATS. :cat: :cat:

The pay is good, though. A happy, purring, filled-up kitty is like money in my pocket. Only difference is, no tipso_O Unless I want to count the gifts they leave in the litter box.

I may have found a solution to the problem of cats who'd rather fight than switch...foods. I used to have my kitties free-feeding dry. Now I'm trying to change them over to wet. They've been depressed of late, because their free-feeding bowl of krinkies isn't out on the table like it used to be. Dottie just goes to the dish's usual spot, and sits around a while, looking confused.

But Gizmo's really taken this subtraction to heart. He's been stomping around like an angry three year old.

I'd been using the Forti-flora sprinkled on their wet food, to tempt them, and had some mixed results. Dottie likes the FF, but it's not enough for Gizzy. I became worried that he was one of those cats who eventually gets a sick stomach from the FF.

But without it...He turned up his nose at the wet food dish. Went up on his cat tree, and pouted.:mad:

Worried that he might stop eating entirely, I waved everything I could under his face. The only thing he responded to, was a handful of dry krinkies. But I didn't want to put krinkies on his wet food, because he could still see the them sitting on top..so he 'wins'...sort of. I was giving in, and giving him exactly what he wanted. I needed to find a way to give him just the smell and flavor, but not enough that it would mess up his pancreas.

SO...instead of sprinkling FF on his canned food...I used my spice grinder , and ground up a tiny bit of Gizmo's favorite junk food. All he needed was a dusting of this powder, so his dish smelled like his high carb krinkies, and now he's eating the wet food quite happily. He just needed the smell, and a little bit of flavor, to get him going. NOW I can reduce the krinkie powder gradually, and eventually he'll forget he ever loved those nasty dry bits.

The key here is, don't load the wet food with the dry food powder. Use it sparingly, like pepper, or FortiFlora. Just enough that your cat can smell it.

It works! Gizmo cleaned his plate. :D
 
I crumble either Pure Bites chicken treats or Orijen treats over my guys' food, sometimes it's the only thing that will get a couple of them to eat at all!
 
I use Cosma Chicken Snackies to 'season' Saoirse's food when she's a bit reluctant to eat (usually the meals with crushed up meds in them). Snackies are a godsend.


Mogs
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