New Cat With Gi Issues. Which Food Should I Feed?

[Equusfemina]

Hi there everyone, it’s such a pleasure to be here! As you can probably see this is my very first post. Please forgive me, it will be a long one, but I really need some help so believe it or not I kept it as short as I could! I also can’t wait to dive in to these boards and get to know you all better!

Okay... I recently fostered and adopted a brand new kitten, named her Tasha. She just turned 1 year on September 29...so I suppose she’s not really a kitten anymore, depending on your perspective! At any rate, she has some major gastrointestinal issues so food is a big deal...more on that in a moment. The reason I fostered her for a month before finally adopting her was because she was so ill at first with these issues.

We dewormed her with every dewormer you can imagine, even though her fecal samples never showed any sign of worms, plus she was on metronidazole and probiotics for 2 weeks, etc. and nothing seemed to help 100%. She stabilized SOMEWHAT, but she still has chronic diarrhea 85% of the time. Thankfully it doesn’t seem to affect her weight, hydration or energy levels. I check her for dehydration daily and she’s growing like a weed since I got her, she has actually put on almost 2 pounds! At the end of it all the shelter veterinarian determined it was diet related. He told me I’d just have to try out different foods and see what worked the best for her.

Let me preface this next bit by stating that I’m currently on a fixed income so, as much as I’d love to buy her the most expensive foods in the world...I just can’t. I originally fed her Purina Cat Chow Naturals in small measured meals throughout the day (up to about 1/2 a cup), and she gets 1 can of Fancy Feast canned food in the morning, along with a few treats here and there of course. She also has Herpes so I give her a Lysine treat once a day. I took her to another vet for a second opinion, and she also agreed that the diarrhea might be food related...but that without performing a biopsy we wouldn’t know if it’s something more serious going on with her GI tract. The independent vet recommended Purina Pro Plan for our dry food, so I went ahead and weaned Tasha off of the Cat Chow and onto Pro Plan Savor, the Chicken & Rice formula. Her diarrhea now is still very sporadic, so I’m sure it is related to the canned food (as she “demands” a different flavor each day, lol) so it’s really the only variable in her diet at this point. I just can’t narrow down which ingredients cause the diarrhea, and I’d like to give her a slightly better quality food than the Fancy Feast to see if that might help... Now I just need to decide what kind of canned food to switch her to...

I’m torn right now between Pro Plan True Instinct (grain free) or Purina Beyond (grain free)...yes, I think I’d like to try grain free...and I definitely need something with less by products. Both of these foods are still fairly affordable and easy for me to obtain in my local area, at least compared to some other wet food that I’ve looked at. I guess my big question is, does anyone have experience with both or either of these canned foods, and if so what are your suggestions? Do you recommend something else for my situation? I’m open to anything that could help at this point... I love Tasha dearly and want the best for her, I’m trying hard to do my best here.

I look forward to chatting with you all, and I thank you in advance for ANY help, advice, suggestions or even constructive criticism you might have for me. Please be kind though, like I said, I’m doing my absolute best to do right by my fur-baby! Thanks so much, especially if you’ve read this far lol...sorry for the epic novel!

 

[Equusfemina]

This is Tasha, by the way.
View media item 421803

 

[daftcat75]

Fancy Feast Classic (not Grill or Gravy) is actually more species-appropriate than the two you are considering. I’d try eliminating the dry before you swap out the wet. Dry is full of carbs and vegetable material that is mostly indigestible to cats. Hence diarrhea. They just aren’t built for vegetables no matter how healthy those labels and ingredients sound.

 

[daftcat75]

Also meat by-products are not a bad thing. It basically means organ meats which is desirable in a cat’s diet.

 

[jen]

I agree completely.
I use Fancy Feast and Friskies classic pate for my cats as they are VERY low carb. But I switch around and buy different foods.

If you want to learn all about cat appropriate diets look here: Feeding Your Cat: Know the Basics of Feline Nutrition – Common Sense. Healthy Cats.
There is a wealth of information.

 

[lisahe]

I couldn't agree more with what daftcat75 and jen have already said: the easiest first step is to gradually take away the dry food, which contains the vegetable matter (corn and wheat in the Pro Plan you're feeding) that cats have difficulty digesting. Feeding dry food also makes it difficult to figure out what's causing a cat's digestive issues: there are usually lots more potentially suspect ingredients than in canned!

I also agree that Fancy Feast -- the Classics, the pates, rather than any of the other lines, which tend to contain a lot of wheat gluten -- are pretty decent foods. They work well for lots of cats with digestive problems because they're so low carb, with no plant matter. So they're a good choice (don't worry about byproducts, particularly now, when you're trying to solve the diarrhea problem!) as are foods like Sheba pates. (Friskies aren't bad, either, though I prefer to avoid the carby rice, even if it's not very much.)

We all have our own ways of trying to puzzle out what's causing a cat's food issues, so this is all IMHO. That said, personally, I think the big thing -- particularly right now, when you're trying to figure out what's causing the problem -- is to get your cat on a diet that's as meat-based as possible. Which means avoiding grains and vegetables, particularly the carby ones like potato and peas that are often added as fillers and/or protein (!) sources. Cats need meat protein not vegetable protein. If that doesn't work (sometimes it can take some time, a couple weeks, to see real results), I'd then take out any foods with fish, which is another relatively common irritant. But I'd save that phase 2 of the food trials! Speaking of which, it's often helpful to keep a food diary to track symptoms and what you're feeding. You might find a pattern. You might also notice something through dumb luck: that's how I figured out it was potato that was causing one of our cats to vomit and have horrible-smelling gas.

Good luck! Tasha looks like a very sweet cat -- she's lucky you're so concerned about her health!

 

[Equusfemina]

I couldn't agree more with what daftcat75 and jen have already said: the easiest first step is to gradually take away the dry food, which contains the vegetable matter (corn and wheat in the Pro Plan you're feeding) that cats have difficulty digesting. Feeding dry food also makes it difficult to figure out what's causing a cat's digestive issues: there are usually lots more potentially suspect ingredients than in canned!

I also agree that Fancy Feast -- the Classics, the pates, rather than any of the other lines, which tend to contain a lot of wheat gluten -- are pretty decent foods. They work well for lots of cats with digestive problems because they're so low carb, with no plant matter. So they're a good choice (don't worry about byproducts, particularly now, when you're trying to solve the diarrhea problem!) as are foods like Sheba pates. (Friskies aren't bad, either, though I prefer to avoid the carby rice, even if it's not very much.)

We all have our own ways of trying to puzzle out what's causing a cat's food issues, so this is all IMHO. That said, personally, I think the big thing -- particularly right now, when you're trying to figure out what's causing the problem -- is to get your cat on a diet that's as meat-based as possible. Which means avoiding grains and vegetables, particularly the carby ones like potato and peas that are often added as fillers and/or protein (!) sources. Cats need meat protein not vegetable protein. If that doesn't work (sometimes it can take some time, a couple weeks, to see real results), I'd then take out any foods with fish, which is another relatively common irritant. But I'd save that phase 2 of the food trials! Speaking of which, it's often helpful to keep a food diary to track symptoms and what you're feeding. You might find a pattern. You might also notice something through dumb luck: that's how I figured out it was potato that was causing one of our cats to vomit and have horrible-smelling gas.

Good luck! Tasha looks like a very sweet cat -- she's lucky you're so concerned about her health!

Thank you ALL so much, you’ve been so very helpful and informative, I appreciate it!

I wonder why my vet recommended the Pro Plan dry food so strongly...she must have a business relationship with the company and is trying to push their food or something? I mean, she even gave me a very generous free sample, which honestly is the main reason I switched. I gave Tasha some and she inhaled it, she liked it so much...and I looked into it and the ingredients DID seem somewhat better than what I had been feeding. So, of course I figured it was the right choice.

At any rate, I’m kind of glad you are all suggesting I try sticking with the Fancy Feast because honestly, I have about 30 cans of it in my cupboard and I hated the idea of it going to waste! Plus the thought of switching to something completely new scares me a bit...I don’t want to make her diarrhea WORSE! I guess I just assumed a more expensive food automatically meant a better food...

Maybe I will try to wean her off the dry and increase the wet...see if that makes a difference. The only issue I foresee is that she has started to get picky with the wet food lately. She doesn't seem to always want it, and I alternate between about 8 different flavors and textures so I know it’s not boredom. I’m afraid maybe I’ve spoiled her or something! Either way, I’m hopeful that she’ll eat it more if I start to slowly remove the dry. Fingers crossed!

Thanks again, and if anyone has any other suggestions please let me know!