New Food, Soft Stool?

[emilielavoie88]

Hi!
I need some advice! I tried a lot of food brands for my cat (Acana, Orijen, Nutrience, Petcurean Go!), and they all give her diarrhea or soft stool... I figured it might be the legumes (there's a lot of peas, chickpeas, lentils, etc in these grain free foods). Every time I try a new food, I end up feeding her Royal Canin gastro to help her...

Lately, I decided to try Farmina Prime Chicken Adult. There's pea starch in the formula but it is quite far in the list of ingredients. I gradually switched her food from RC to Farmina in at least 2-3 weeks. It was all good, her feces were firm until I was at 100% Farmina. She is a white persian, so sometimes I see that her stools aren't that firm. It is not that bad, no diarrhea, but I have to shave her sometimes because she has poop in her fur, and I can see that she's not really clean........ It's been about 2 weeks since she's 100% Farmina. I think it got a little better when I started giving her less food (she was eating 1/2 cup of the Royal Canin, so 150kcal/day. I gave her also 1/2 cup of Farmina but it's 200kcal/day, and the feeding recommandation for a 4kg cat is 1/3-2/3 cup/day). Now I give her about 3/8 cup.

Is it normal to experience that kind of soft stool when switching food? Can it go away with time? Or at that point, is the food really a problem?

(And I know some may say I should go to the vet, but I happened in the past and I went but she's healthy! (And also she was ok on Royal Canin Kitten when I got her, so when there's grains she's ok...))

Thank you!!

 

[jen]

It is almost always guaranteed to cause soft stool when you switch around food. Especially with all the different foods you have tried. Your vet can give a probiotic or recommend an OTC one to help firm things up. Keep her on 1 kind of food that seems to work for her, don't keep switching so much. Also if she is only eating dry food I would consider adding canned to it as well. Stick with a canned version from the same brand of dry you are using. But add it SLOWLY. It should take a week plus to transition a cat over to a new food and some need longer.

 

[emilielavoie88]

Thank you for your answer!
Il switched food, but not that much, I have done that over a long period of time (petcuran go! in april 2018 until july, then Acana in the fall, then Nutrience in january 2019). I tried them very slowly but once she was only on the new kind, she would have really loose stool. Farmina is way better right now. She has soft stool, but nothing like what I've seen before. She has been on Royal Canin Gastro from february to august of this year, and then I began the switch to Farmina!

And yes, I want to wait until her stools are back to normal and I would like to try the Farmina wet food! It is not available in Canada right now but the rep told me it should be available in about 2 months. She really likes their dry food (she is very very picky) so I hope she likes the wet too. The only one she ever wanted to taste was the RC gastro. I know it takes time to make the switch, but that's what I want to do.