Stench Vs. Grade Of Food?

susan d

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I have 4 cats that live with me in my 1 bedroom apartment- a feral and her 3 babies that are almost 2. They split 2 cans of either Tiki Cat or Soulistic 2 x/day. Because the Soulistic cans are smaller,I most often add Fresh Pet refrigeratored to bulk it up. This combo of foods has worked very well for me because it has eliminated the horrible stench of the poop they had on other wet food and kibble- and that has been my main criterion. The other component to the diet are wayyyyy too many Greenies treats demanded at the same time daily. At Petco I pay about $550/ mo. I live in Honolulu and Chewy.com does not ship here- I am pretty much at the whim of Petco. My finances have recently changed and I am needing to reassess my expenses. Is there a food maybe cheaper that keeps the stench out of the poop? My other thought is to maybe cook them some of the less expensive proteins and supplement the canned with that. Another thing about kibble is that my mama cat is prone to bladder problems that have her constantly in the box,trying to urinate. I have been lucky to head that off so far by adding some water to the food. What is it they add to foods that makes makes the smell of the poop so intolerable? What is it I need to avoid? Does anyone have any suggestions? I am really in need of some guidance if anyone has some to offer. Thank you!
 

Furballsmom

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Hi!
I'm not sure what it is that is causing your kitties to have such smelly poop although this database might have some possibilities
Pet Food Guide

Other than your idea of cooking and then supplementing with canned, have you tried Natural Balance or Merrick Backcountry wet food??
Can you try freeze dried treats?
 
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maggie101

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Maybe a different canned food with different ingredients might help. Do you plan on keeping the kittens or getting them adopted? Not all cats are good about covering their poo. Also, do you scoop every day?
Check out the catfooddb.com for reviews and pricing. It seems like most food includes fish. Some cats are allergic to that. I also try to avoid carrageenan though lots of food have that.
 
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LTS3

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Plain cooked unsupplemented meat can be up to 10% of the diet. Maybe you can look into whether you can get pre-mxes shipped to Hawaii? EZComplete is popular.


What is it they add to foods that makes makes the smell of the poop so intolerable? What is it I need to avoid?
Undigestible fillers will make poop stinky:barfgreen: So avoid things like grain, veggies, gums, starches, etc. It also depends on each individual cat and how their body processes food. Some cats make super stinky poop while another cat on the exact same diet may not.
 

lisahe

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Undigestible fillers will make poop stinky:barfgreen: So avoid things like grain, veggies, gums, starches, etc. It also depends on each individual cat and how their body processes food. Some cats make super stinky poop while another cat on the exact same diet may not.
:yeah: The more meat-based protein and the less plant-based carbs you can feed, the less the cats' boxes are likely to smell. As LTS3 mentioned, though, every cat is different, so you may need to do a little experimentation with your cats' diet.

As an example, Freshpet has two pea ingredients in each of the three foods I looked at online: that's vegetable matter and, well, legumes have been known to make mammals gassy. (Some people have reported that their cats even get diarrhea from peas in their food.) One of our cats was horribly gassy (and vomited) until we took potato out of her diet; others on the site have had similar experiences with cats and potatoes. You didn't mention what dry food you're feeding but unless it's Dr. Elsey's or Wysong, it's likely to contain a load of carby stuff, too, and cats just don't tend to process those well.

Good luck!
 

daftcat75

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Sometimes it's the thickeners or the gums that limit digestion, irritate the gut, and cause smelly loose stools. Xanthum gum will tear a path through my cat. So will agar agar. The food could be high quality in every regard. But if it contains one of these, it's going to get a foul report from my Krista.
 

LTS3

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Adding that I feed commercial raw food. One cat might as well be eating junky dry food because of what comes out :barfgreen: The other cat has nearly odorless poop. So even raw food diets may not help with litter box odor with some cats.
 
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susan d

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Wow! Lots of good info and resources-thank you all so much for your input! I have been reading between w2's and 1099's! It's almost overwhelming to see what's available. The suggestion of the premixed is really enticing since all I would have to do is cook the protein. I tried one for my dog years ago and she was a firm no! Have people had good success with it? The thought of changing diet for 4 cats feels quite daunting :paranoid::paranoid:,but it seems that it would be quite a substantial savings.

In answer to a question- yes,I have long ago decided to keep all the kittens,it hurt too much to try to let them go:bawling: They've all been fixed. And I scoop 2x per day. The dry that I was feeding was Merrick bistro,but I was mixing it in with Kitten Chow. The whole dry food thing scares me because of the mama cats problems with urinating when on it- she seems super sensitive.
 

lisahe

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Our cats love their cooked premix food. They get foods made with EZ Complete and Alnutrin (the kind with eggshell, which is what I'd recommend since bone, which is in the other Alnutrin mix, can cause constipation): EZ is a bit easier because it has liver in it but Alnutrin, to which you have to add a little liver, is cheaper. If you shop around for meat, you can definitely make food at a pretty reasonable price. Both those companies will send samples.

Good luck with your taxes! (I'm a slowpoke, too!)
 
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susan d

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Our cats love their cooked premix food. They get foods made with EZ Complete and Alnutrin (the kind with eggshell, which is what I'd recommend since bone, which is in the other Alnutrin mix, can cause constipation): EZ is a bit easier because it has liver in it but Alnutrin, to which you have to add a little liver, is cheaper. If you shop around for meat, you can definitely make food at a pretty reasonable price. Both those companies will send samples.

Good luck with your taxes! (I'm a slowpoke, too!)
Lisahe,I'm curious to know whether your cats have ever been on canned food,and if so,what was the transition like? Do the premixed look like real food once added to meat? Is it basically just dehydrated? I noticed one of them said to transition 1/2-1 tsp. at a time,and that seems like it could take a while.
 

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lisahe

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Lisahe,I'm curious to know whether your cats have ever been on canned food,and if so,what was the transition like? Do the premixed look like real food once added to meat? Is it basically just dehydrated? I noticed one of them said to transition 1/2-1 tsp. at a time,and that seems like it could take a while.
Our cats still eat canned food, one meal a day. (Their others are 2 freeze-dried raw and 2 homemade.)

There was no real transition to homemade. One night I made a small batch of EZ Complete (with chicken breast, since they both love that), put a serving on a big platter, set it on the floor, and watched the cats circle it for a few minutes. Then they started eating. And finished it. They seem to have sensitive stomachs for certain ingredients but are generally fine as long as everything's just meat and supplements -- that's why I generally don't do slow food transitions for them.

The photo in the thread that LTS3 linked to is ours -- that's our second batch of EZ! It's funny: I thought it looked familiar! Alas, though, the cats don't like chicken thighs nearly as much. Sometimes I make shreds (very time-consuming, though!). Sometimes I chop/grind the meat into a more pate-like consistency in the food processor. The great thing about homemade is that you can adjust the texture so easily.
 

1 bruce 1

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Our cats still eat canned food, one meal a day. (Their others are 2 freeze-dried raw and 2 homemade.)

There was no real transition to homemade. One night I made a small batch of EZ Complete (with chicken breast, since they both love that), put a serving on a big platter, set it on the floor, and watched the cats circle it for a few minutes. Then they started eating. And finished it. They seem to have sensitive stomachs for certain ingredients but are generally fine as long as everything's just meat and supplements -- that's why I generally don't do slow food transitions for them.

The photo in the thread that LTS3 linked to is ours -- that's our second batch of EZ! It's funny: I thought it looked familiar! Alas, though, the cats don't like chicken thighs nearly as much. Sometimes I make shreds (very time-consuming, though!). Sometimes I chop/grind the meat into a more pate-like consistency in the food processor. The great thing about homemade is that you can adjust the texture so easily.
You have some lucky cats, lisahe lisahe !
When I was still a kid we had a cat that developed what the vet at the time assumed was kidney failure. She was old and had a good, long life, but she ate dry food and was addicted to it, she'd snub anything else. When we were more active in fostering, we were always told with older, healthy kittens to feed them all kinds of anything. Dry food, different sizes and shapes, wet foods of pate, chunks, gravies, raw meat, cooked meat, chopped vegetables (not too many found humor in those :thumbsup:) and things like powdered kittens milk, etc. I get it now more than I did then. I think food experimentation should be included in all kinds of kitten care hand outs to new owners, because preventing that finicky imprint on one single type and one single flavor of one single brand comes back to bite you in the rear.
(A few years ago we got some raw food from a butcher. We fed it to the cats, and no one would touch it, very strange. Some friends of ours used the same butchery for their raw fed pets too and said they got the same batch for their dogs and cats. The cats ALL snubbed it. The dogs wolfed it down. The dogs spent the next day or two throwing up and having diarrhea all over the house.
Now I love dogs, but you gotta admit, cats are best at telling you when food isn't at it's top. I guess the food had gone off in the fridge just enough that cats would say "no way jose" and the dogs would eat it.)
 

lisahe

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1 bruce 1 1 bruce 1 , will you please send the cats a note and tell them they're lucky? We always joke that they don't realize how lucky they are to be getting custom-made food. ;)

Seriously, though, I think they're luckiest that we learned so much from our previous cat, who had so many undiagnosed digestive problems that we finally figured out in her last months. Without that -- and learning the basics of how to feed cats -- we never would have known how to feed these two (who have minor digestive quirks) properly. They also benefited from the stockpile of foods I'd bought for Brooksie! There was everything, dozens of cans, so it gave everybody a start on feeding them various kinds of foods. We're lucky that, even if they're picky in some ways, they can be convinced to eat just about anything!

So lots of luck all the way around -- not just for these two cats but for all the people who write here to find out how best to feed their cats. There are a lot of lucky cats and people out there!
 

1 bruce 1

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1 bruce 1 1 bruce 1 , will you please send the cats a note and tell them they're lucky? We always joke that they don't realize how lucky they are to be getting custom-made food. ;)

Seriously, though, I think they're luckiest that we learned so much from our previous cat, who had so many undiagnosed digestive problems that we finally figured out in her last months. Without that -- and learning the basics of how to feed cats -- we never would have known how to feed these two (who have minor digestive quirks) properly. They also benefited from the stockpile of foods I'd bought for Brooksie! There was everything, dozens of cans, so it gave everybody a start on feeding them various kinds of foods. We're lucky that, even if they're picky in some ways, they can be convinced to eat just about anything!

So lots of luck all the way around -- not just for these two cats but for all the people who write here to find out how best to feed their cats. There are a lot of lucky cats and people out there!
Baby Girl will send them a card. It will read "Dad put me on a diet. Count your blessings." :flail:
The thing is, when we have a cat, or a dog, or ourselves or any other family member with some kind of problem we tend to research the crap out of it. We learn a lot along the way and know what to avoid or what signs to look out for.
We like to be the top of the food chain, but let us be honest. Who is teaching whom here?
And even though I'm an old fart who can't even really use a smart phone, this internet business can be used for some good, and we can help each other out.
 
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