Cat on whole prey throwing up

[Arkona]

I started to put my cat on whole prey about a week ago. She went from eating mainly ground raw with some bits and pieces of real meat and organs, into whole prey, so not a crazy transition.

At first it took some coaxing to get her to eat the full animals, but she's at a point right now where she's eating them and enjoying them with no encouragement. She especially loves the chicks.

However, one thing that's been happening is that she's been throwing up on a regular basis. She had diahrrea once, on one of the first days, but since then her stool has been fine. Only a couple of times she threw up the actual food. Now what's happening is, she only throws up hairballs. The hairballs consist mostly of mice hair, plus some of her hair. Before that, it was very rare that she would throw up hairballs.

She's not regurgitating the chick feathers, only the mice hair. So what I started doing as of yesterday is feeding her just the chicks, and the hairless pinkie mice, as well as some ground food she used to eat before, for variety. I'm trying to see if she will continue to throw up if I'm not giving her the mice or rats that have hair.

Is it normal for cats to regurgitate the fur of their prey? Do cats in the wild regularly throw up? Or is she just not used to it?

[hoofmaiden]

That happens occasionally to mine. Not all the time, though. I wouldn't worry about it--let her system get used to things. And if she does it occasionally, that's pretty normal. Mine never have REAL hairballs anymore--most rawfed cats do not. But they do occaionally toss up mouse hair.

[Arkona]

Yes, my cat has been on raw for a while now and hairballs are very rare. They do happen, probably because we don't groom her (she hates it), but very rarely.

On the mice it's been regular. It's mostly just mouse/rat fur. It's very consistent, pretty much everytime I feed them, she throws up.

What I'm going to do now, since this isn't normal, is just feed the chicks and hairless mice for a few weeks until her system is more used to the whole prey, then try to introduce the furry rats and mice again and see what happens.

[tanyuh]

I feed one day old chicks to all three of my cats. Occasionally one of them will throw up if he either eats too quickly or if it was still too cold. Other than that, they puke occasional hairballs because they lick each other so much. Only one of them likes mice but we rarely get him any because they're $2.50 EACH in my town, whereas the chicks are 2 cents each from the chicken farmer. So, I can't really comment on the fur aspect.