Looking For A New Food For Sensitive Tummies.

My older kitty Henry is 14 and has IBS. My younger kitty Sophie is about 11 and seems to be sensitive to chicken and beef. They have been eating the Royal Canin selected protein rabbit formula. I would like to try something cheaper and better, but every time I think I’ve found an alternative, I see something that makes me hesitate. The instinct formula that is similar contains menadione sodium bisulfate. There is a natural balance venison formula that looked ok, but it sounds like the quality of this food may be questionable? And it sounds like both this and my current food have much higher carbs than they should, but maybe that’s true of all dry foods.

Henry will not usually eat much or any wet food; gravy will interest her a little, but she still usually doesn’t eat much. Sophie would be an easier convert, but my schedule won’t allow for a completely wet diet and that won’t help the budget problem either. She also loves to eat and is already overweight; if I start putting wet out more often she’ll probably just eat twice as much.

I’m not sure if there is anything out there that might be a better option than the ones I’ve already listed. Most other foods have a lot more ingredients. Henry has been on prednisolone for a long time so maybe it wouldn’t be as much of an issue at this point.

AFAIK no issues with fish, but I think it is generally accepted that a fish focused diet is not good for cats, right? Plus it’s probably all contaminated fish anyway!

Some blandish foods that are good for most IBD cats:

Blue Buffalo Basics
Merrick Limited Ingredients
Koha Limited Ingredient
Natural Balance LID
Instinct Limited Ingredient Diet | Instinct Pet Food
RAWZ | 100% Rendered Free Cat Food
Single Novel Protein Grain Free Wet (not Raw) Food? Help!
Your favorite brands of "novel protein" canned cat food
Recs For Low-carb, Grain-free Pork Without Chicken Or Fish?
Canned - Pure Vita - Natural Holistic Pet Foods
NutriSource Pet Foods

The key for my IBD kitty was eliminating fillers like grains (and most probably legumes and most vegetables). Also, found a sensitivity to chicken but he's doing great with turkey. I'm not 100% sure on potato because an earlier food I fed used potato as a binder/filler but also contained chicken. Could have been an issue with both the chicken and potato. No way to rule out just the potato. At any rate, this essentially meant a wet food diet switch for my cat that ate only dry for 12 years. It can be done.

All cats are different though, including IBD cats. Some tolerate things that others wouldn't.

darg said:

All cats are different though, including IBD cats. Some tolerate things that others wouldn't.

Click to expand...

And therein lies the difficulty of figuring out what to feed a cat with IBD or similar sensitivities! waddle , do you know -- or have any idea -- what causes Henry's IBD? Any hints on that would be helpful.

That said, darg 's suggestion of eliminating grains, legumes, and most vegetables is a great start: those ingredients could be causing trouble for Henry and they're certainly not helping Sophie's weight problems. Carby calories are basically empty calories. I think that's one reason why our vet's first suggestion for overweight cats is to feed only wet food, which will almost certainly cut those sorts of fillers significantly. Yes, almost all dry foods have high carbs.

It's meat protein that fills a cat up: they're carnivores, so it's meat they crave. And the water in wet food helps them feel fuller, so it's a good possibility that Sophie wouldn't double her food intake, particularly over the long term.

Thinking out loud here, you could maybe look into a timed feeder for canned food, where you could arrange an ice pack or two underneath the feeder.

LTS3 thank you for posting the links!

I think I will try one of the Merrick dry foods, and then later pick up some of the limited ingredient wet foods and see if I can find some they’re interested in. Figure I better try one new thing at a time!

This one has one of the best ratings, but is not a limited ingredient. Thinking I may try it anyway unless one of you thinks it’s a bad idea. It’s the Merrick purrfect bistro duck and turkey. I have a new bag of their regular food coming tomorrow so I can do a very slow switchover.

Merrick Purrfect Bistro Real Duck + Turkey Recipe Cat Food Review

If not that one, the Merrick Limited Ingredient Turkey.

It’s been so long now that I can’t remember what they were eating when Henry was diagnosed. She lost a LOT of weight and was vomiting more. Recently, I think any vomiting from either has been from eating too fast. I’m not entirely sure about Sophie and the chicken. She had really runny stools after eating a pork and a beef food so I avoid those. I once tried a different rx food that had chicken in it that seemed to upset her as well, but it could easily have been from something other than the chicken.

Hmm looks like the formula has changed so maybe I better stick to the limited ingredient turkey.

Purrfect Bistro Real Duck + Sweet Potato Recipe | Merrick Pet Care

I'm also having trouble with a senior kitty with an extremely sensitive stomach. Switching to wet-food only has eliminated the vomiting, but he still has constant runny poops.

So far we've tried:
Dry: Purina Pro Plan Sensitive Stomach - Lamb & Rice formula (terrible vomiting and diarrhea)
Wet: Instinct Limited Ingredient Duck (no vomiting; less trips to the litter box but still diarrhea)

I would still like to try to find a dry food solution because he is used to free-feeding and I have another cat with no dietary issues who is very greedy so I have to separate them at feeding time. I will do whatever it takes to help him out even if it is super inconvenient. I just wonder if I'm better off continuing to search for a wet food formula that suits him.

I've placed an order for Blue Basics Turkey formula in both wet and dry versions.