A Helpful Guide To Cat Vomit Color Chart For Pet Parents

Every cat owner will encounter vomiting in their pet at least once in their lifetime.  

Cats can vomit for a variety of reasons.  While some of them are quite harmless, others can even mean serious health problems.

As soon as you notice that your cat is vomiting, you should carefully observe her and see if she shows any additional symptoms.

What is also important is the color of your cat's vomit. In order to understand what it can show you, below I bring you a description of the cat vomit color chart.

Cat Vomit Color Chart

White Foamy Vomit

Almost all cats will at least sometimes vomit white foam – and, in most cases, this will not indicate any serious health problems.

This can happen if a cat eats too much food too quickly, or if she’s having too much activity on an empty stomach.

White foamy vomit might also occur if your little kitten ingested some of her hair while grooming herself.

To avoid this, make sure to introduce regular meals for your kitten – at the same time every day. Also, if she has very long fur, you should brush it frequently to avoid hairballs.

If this helps, and your cat otherwise seems perfectly fine, there’s nothing to worry about. However, if your cat continues to vomit white foam, and shows any other signs of illness, such as lethargy or appetite loss, it’s time to contact a veterinarian.

Read Also: 4 Home Remedies For Cat Vomiting White Foam

Yellow Vomit

If your cat vomits yellow, this usually means she has an empty stomach. Cats have acids in their stomach that are there to aid their digestion. They also have bile, which is a fluid produced in their liver and also assists with their digestion.

When the cat’s stomach is empty, these acids have nothing to dilute them, and irritate the stomach lining, causing the cat to vomit bile, according to Spruce Pets. 

This can easily be solved by feeding your cat smaller meals more often, as to avoid an empty stomach in her.

Of course, you should be careful not to make your cat obese, and make sure you’re not leaving food available to her all the time.

See Also: 7 Home Remedies For Cat Vomiting Yellow Liquid

Brown Vomit

A cat’s vomit can be brown for a couple of reasons. 

First of all, this could be due to the simplest reason – perhaps your cat has eaten brown food! Also, she might be dealing with food sensitivities, and it’s the right moment you change her diet.

So, in this case, the brown vomit isn’t a sign of a serious health problem, but rather a food intolerance. 

Still, a cat might also be dealing with food allergies, causing her to vomit. If this is the case, she could also show some other common symptoms, such as diarrhea, skin rash, and her fur looking separated. 

There’s also a possibility of bleeding in the gastrointestinal tract. Søren Boysen [1] explains that this bleeding might originate in the cat’s stomach, esophagus, small intestine, or large intestine.

This bleeding can happen due to, for example, a foreign body ingestion, or a large hairball ingestion.

It’s necessary to urgently contact a veterinarian in these situations.

See Also: Why A Cat Hairball Looks Like Poop, And How To Help

Green Vomit

Green vomit might happen with cats that eat grass or any other green plants. Maybe your kitten also loves some green dental chews, and now her vomit is also colored in this color!

However, green vomit can also be a sign of a health problem in felines – a gastrointestinal obstruction, to be more precise.

PetMD explains that the food a cat ingests is normally pushed from her stomach to the small intestines, then to the large intestines, and afterward goes out through her rectum and anus.

If an obstruction occurs, nothing can pass through the cat’s intestines, meaning that all the food and other content will go back up into her stomach, causing her to vomit green.

Gastrointestinal obstruction is a very serious condition that can even lead to fatal outcomes in felines. Therefore, if you have any doubts your cat might deal with it – take her to the emergency veterinarian right away! 

Red Vomit

This color will most probably make all cat parents instantly worried, since red indicates the presence of blood in your cat’s vomit.

This might happen with cats that have problems in their upper gastrointestinal tracts, due to a presence of a foreign body, some kind of infection, or even due to drugs and toxins in the cat’s body.

Sometimes, a cat might swallow blood coming out from an injury on her body, or from having a nosebleed, which can also make her feel nauseous and vomit blood.

In general, the red color is always an alert alarm. According to the cat poop color chart, red feces can indicate the presence of blood in the cat’s lower GI tract.

So, as soon as you notice red vomit in your cat, you need to call the veterinarian!

Conclusion 

I hope this cat vomit color chart has given you some concrete insight into what this phenomenon could possibly indicate.

Any of you can probably conclude that red vomit, compared to white or yellow, is much more worrisome.

Although you should know that in many cases vomiting in a cat will pass very quickly and will not mean any more serious health problems, my advice would be to seek the advice of a veterinarian in any case.

Explain to him how long your cat has been vomiting, what color her vomit is, what she last ate, and if she is showing any other symptoms.

Even if she soon gets better and her vomiting turns out not to be indicative of any more serious medical condition – you will be sure that you did the best for your pet's health!

References:

Read Next: 5 Answers For Why Your Cat Threw Up Clear Liquid And Died