Food Problem - Potato Starch or What?

[dianamc]

Dandy, our almost 6-mos. kitten, just had 2 days where she didn't seem to feel well.  She spent a lot of the day  in her bed and didn't come to see us.  The litter box also stank to high heaven.

We thought she might be sick but weren't sure if it was just a "phase" but she's back to normal now.  I think it must be a food issue so now to figure out what.

She had more Weruva Paw Lickin' Chicken than usual and it has potato starch, an ingredient that's not in anything else.  I know some people don't like this but does it cause some cats to have problems?  She had Tiki Cat yesterday which seemed to go okay.

The other food that she ate more-than-usual was Hound&Gatos Lamb, Chicken & Salmon mixed with FF Chicken Feast Classic.  She has eaten Hound&Gatos before with varying success and we had previously mixed it with FF Ocean Whitefish & Tuna Classic, but this mix was a bigger hit.  She had that FF flavor a long time ago but not so much.  It has "fish" in it and seems oily.  I gave her a FF Chicken & Liver today because I didn't know what to feed her and her behavior seems normal.  Her poop still stinks  but I was mostly worried about her lethargy.

Well, those seem to be the likely culprits.  The other thing she had was her Wellness Kitten but she eats that a lot.

 

[ldg]

Wait - so was any of it a new protein for her? It's hard to tell, but perhaps the salmon didn't agree with her? :dk:

 

[dianamc]

None of it was exactly new but we've gotten more of the Hound & Gatos into her than we had before.  It's also called Lamb, Chicken & Salmon, but the ingredient list is lamb, salmon, chicken.  It is the only food with salmon.

Yesterday she had another "off" day and had a can of the Weruva, 1 meal of the H&G, and a can of the FF Chicken.  This combo wasn't intentional but my husband had opened the FF before I could stop him.  Now today she is feeling "zippy" again and eating her Wellness kitten food.  Something in that mix isn't setting quite right.

 

[ldg]

Will she eat if you feed the same food at each meal? Sticking to just one thing will obviously help narrow down which one is the source of the problem! If you could feed her the same thing for two days, I expect that would be enough time....

 

[dianamc]

I guess she would of the FF Chicken and also of the Weruva.  We began mixing the Hound & Gatos because we were throwing it away most of the time.  I hate to feed just Weruva because it doesn't seem to fill her up at all and it is only a little more than 50 calories a can.  I hate to think how many cans she might eat.  

I know that patchwork yesterday didn't tell us anything.  Is salmon often an issue?

 

[dianamc]

Just an update:  I've gotten her to eat two consecutive meals of plain Hound&Gatos, last night and this morning. So far so good for the experiment.  I will do the FF chicken after this although I don't like to feed that much Fancy Feast.  Thanks for the suggesstion. Maybe I won't have to do 10 or so cans of Weruva

  She has eaten two cans of kitten food plus a serving of H&G, which is probably the caloric equivalent of 5 or 6 cans of Weruva.

 

[cjandshadow]

We just found out one of our cats is allergic to chicken which is in most cat food. This was causing our cat to vomit daily and very cranky & not wanting to interact. We switched her to Purina ONE Special Care Sensitive Systems Adult Cat Food and its like we have a totally different cat, in a good way.

 

[dianamc]

This is day #2 for Dandy on the Hound & Gatos Lamb, Chicken & Salmon.  She's been eating it all right.  Last night she refused it but after my husband put it in the fridge and I removed part of it, she immediately ate it.  Later that night she ate more and ate her usual amount of dry Wellness (we give her some at night so we don't have wet out).  She ate the H&G all right this AM.

It's now slightly after 6 p.m. and I tried to feed her around 3.  She wouldn't eat and has been lying in her bed again ever since.  I left the food out for an hour or more and finally put it back in the fridge.  I'm flummoxed! We'll try to finish today with the H&G and then switch to FF Chicken.

It does seem like the H&G has made her poop kind of large, soft and smelly, although not it's not actual diarrhea.  After this experiment, I will attempt to feed her the H&G Chicken to see if it's H&G or one of those proteins, but she never did like that chicken so I'm not counting on that working.  I know I'm bad but I miss the old days of putting out a bowl of Royal Canin dry and being done with it.  This trying to do the right thing is something else.

It's now 8 p.m. and she's still zonked out on her bed here.  This is the behavior that made me think there was a problem in the beginning.

 

[dianamc]

Dandy has now finished 2 days eating FF Chicken Feast as her wet food.  She ate 4+ cans of it and would come and yowl for more if she didn't get enough.  I think we may need to go to the vet so I will be able to get an opinion on her weight then.

She seemed to feel much better on the FF and I had my ripping and tearing kitty back.  Today we finished a can of FF and have had two cans of Weruva.  She hasn't been as bouncy but she doesn't seem to feel as bad as before.  So far it looks like the H&G was the culprit.  They didn't have a suitable single protein where I ordered or I wouldn't have chosen that one with salmon.  I'll see if I can get her to eat H&G chicken, but she never did before.

 

[dianamc]

I guess this is the final update unless I persuade her to eat H&G chicken in the future. First I want to get the can of the other flavor fed to our outdoor cat.

Dandy had eaten 2 cans of Weruva today and I thought she was doing all right on it.  I heard a noise when she was playing and she looked scared and stopped.  I looked around but didn't see anything (I thought she might have thrown up).   It had been quite awhile since she'd eaten.  Tonight my husband asked what the "white stuff" was on the floor.  It was some shreds of chicken.  I guess she had projectile vomited a little bit of it and that's what I heard.  It wasn't a mess like vomit usually is, just shreds of chicken.

That's the end of trying all-Weruva.  I went back to her Wellness Kitten and she seemed glad to see it, ate 3/4 of a can and rearranged her rolly ball scratching toy.

 

[laurag]

Unless you have cans of the Hounds and Gatos, I probably wouldn't force it. If she's doing better on Wellness Kitten and Fancy Feast, it might be worth just offering her that for a few days to make sure she's back to normal.

Weruva is super expensive given the actual food you get. It's made in Thailand and while ostensibly it is made and canned in a facility that can/does make human grade food it also has some ingredients in it that could be responsible for the upset (potato starch). I really do not like that the food is made in a different country.

 

[dianamc]

I had a case of both kinds of H&G and the Weruva!  I just didn't pay enough attention when I ordered the Weruva. We have nearly finished the one flavor of H&G and I was going to donate the other when I realized that our outdoor kitty might eat it.  She does, so we are slowly working our way through it.  Maybe I will feed a little Weruva since she (Dandy) likes it but I will limit it as a treat and not get any more. I totally agree with you about the cost for the amount of food.