Transitioning to new food

Antonio65

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I'm aware that a sudden change of diet may upset a cat's belly, so it's always advisable to slowly transition from a food to another one.
But is it possible to go back to the the first food without transitioning again?

Let's say that I want to go from Food A to Food B. This is what I usually do:
-Day 1 and 2: 80% Food A + 20% Food B
-Day 3 and 4: 60% Food A + 40% Food B
-Day 5 and 6: 40% Food A + 60% Food B
-Day 7 and 8: 20% Food A + 80% Food B
-Day 9: 100% Food B

Say that after a period of time, two months, six months, a year, I would like or need to switch back to Food A, should I do the same transition, or the cat's belly already recognize that "old" protein and does not give troubles?
Would a shorter period between the transition and the switch back be better for skipping the transition?
Could I even alternate Food A and Food B daily or weekly?
 

Furballsmom

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But is it possible to go back to the the first food without transitioning again?
Yes, although if this were me I might feed just a small amount of the first food as a test.

Could I even alternate Food A and Food B daily or weekly?
Yes. I do all the time with Poppycat :)
 

neely

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Yes, although if this were me I might feed just a small amount of the first food as a test.
:yeah: I completely agree.

Regarding your schedule above for Day 1 thru 9, I tend to err on the side of caution when transitioning food and instead of increasing the amount day by day or every other day I would increase the amount weekly, e.g. first week 80% Food A + 20% Food B, so that the transition takes longer.

This Article may have some helpful advice for you: Transitioning Your Cat From Kibble To A New Type Of Food – TheCatSite Articles
 
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Antonio65

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Regarding your schedule above for Day 1 thru 9, I tend to err on the side of caution when transitioning food and instead of increasing the amount day by day or every other day I would increase the amount weekly, e.g. first week 80% Food A + 20% Food B, so that the transition takes longer.
Sometimes, waiting so long is impossible. When I had to switch between canned food and home cooked food, we couldn't afford to wait a month. The vet asked me to change her diet over four to five days, I took about 10 days. All went fine.
After about 10 weeks I wanted to go back to the canned food, and it took another 10 days.

Thank you. That article seems to focus mainly on dry foods.
 

Furballsmom

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Regarding how soon a reaction might appear, every cat is different, but I think you are right. If there's going to be a not-good reaction it would be pretty soon after ingesting the new food.
 

lalagimp

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Is this about wet food, or in general? You may have a different response if it's kibble vs canned/gently cooked/raw/freeze dried/rehydrated yadayada
 
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Antonio65

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Is this about wet food, or in general? You may have a different response if it's kibble vs canned/gently cooked/raw/freeze dried/rehydrated yadayada
Well, my question may apply to food in general.
I feed my cats canned and dry food.
It seems to me that, lately, more and more cats show some kind of sensibility to food change, or any food issue in general. Since the loss of my much beloved Lola and Pallina, who might have had a few issues, but nothing that was related to food changing, all the other kittens I fostered had some problems with food and/or poops, and along with the vets we were able to pin the problem down to the food more often than not. Each of them had an intolerance or sensitivity to a protein or a kind or a brand of food. This might make me think that something has changed in the cats' tolerance to foods, or in the foods themselves.

Back to the topic.
I've adopted another kitten, about 2 months old now, so I am doing the same transition thing with her, from the food she had been eating in the days she was at the vet's to what I would like her to eat. We're at day 10, and we haven't finished yet.
She had two or three episodes of very soft, if not runny, poops, but the vet said it was because she was taking Itroconazole by mouth for a ringworm. The runny poops appeared four days into the courseof therapy, which is 7 days every other week for a total of 5 weeks. I promptly gave her some Saccharomyces Boulardii and things have gone better, it seems.

The other cat, 16 months old, is eating a monoproteic fish wet food and grain-free dry food. I would like to feed her another kind of wet food, still fish, trout, not to change it completely, but in order to give her an option to eat something different.
So, I will transition to the new wet food slowly, say in about 12 days, but then I would like to feed her both foods, weekly or similarly.
Hopefully I won't need to do slow transitions each week, will I? ;)
 

lalagimp

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It's commonly a 5-7 day transition depending on how different the diet change is or moving them from one protein family to another like chicken to pork or pork to beef etc. It's more important to go slowly when moving from kibble to raw. In canned and packet food we swap them out daily... Weruva, BFF, Koha, Fromm, Instinct, these ladies get bored.
I can bounce back and forth with canned and raw on my boys.
The girls kibble is always poultry but we move from Dr Elsey's to Tiki and I did 5 days.

If it seems like a ramble, lo siento but I'm getting ready for work where I get to do this ALLLL day.
 

daftcat75

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I don't think a food transition needs to take more than a week. You'll know in a few days whether that food agrees or not as you adjust the mix. With Krista, I often adjusted it by 1/4 every couple of days. So day 1/2: 25/75, day 3/4: 50/50, day 5/6: 75/25 with day 7 being 100% new. Usually I let her poops guide me. Good poops, we proceeded. Soft poops, we stalled until they firmed up. And liquid poops, we aborted. Those don't usually clear up with a slower transition. You can rotate daily or weekly. After a month of not eating a particular food, I would probably do another transition to give her gut a chance to re-familiarize itself with the "new" food. Another transition strategy I did with Krista was to transition only one of her meals. This way it's really easy to abort because she's still getting her old food for the other meals. It's also easy to rotate because she gets the new food one meal and the other food for the other meals. Once transitioned to the new food, I can adjust the flavor rotation and meal schedule as needed or preferred. Sometimes I just put a plate of each out and let her decide.
 
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Antonio65

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daftcat75 daftcat75 ,
Your post has been extremely helpful and clear. Thank you so much!
Allow me to send a kiss to your sweet and beautiful Krista.
 
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