new food making cats very sick

beemo

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hi

i have five cats, four persians and one rescue domestic shorthair.
they range in age from 1 yr to 8 years.
they have been on iams dry all their lives (no canned) after the recall scare i decided to try a more natural food even though iams dry was not on the recall list.
my mom recommended solid gold since it helped her dog with colitis and itchy skin tremendously.
i picked up a small bag of solid gold katz-a-flocken dry kibble. i mixed in small amounts with their iams food for two weeks, gradually increasing the solid gold until it was all solid gold given.
its been about 10 days since they are on pure solid gold dry.
one of my persian cats that has had breathing problems since a kitten has been cured of his problem!

its so wonderful, poor stephen has been to so many doctors and medications galore in his five years of life only to find by accident he has a food allergy this whole time! i was seriously considering the recommended opperation suggested by several vets to clear his breathing by opening up his nostrils. not one of them ever mentioned it could be a food allergy. well wouldnt ya know it

so now stephen is breathing great, no more darth vader sounds and violent sneezing attacks

now the down side to this food, all five cats have terrible terrible diarrhea. it varies from soft to down right liquid including stephen.
im not sure what to do, if i go back to iams their bellies will thank me, but poor stephen will go back to not being able to breathe

will they eventually be able to stomach this food??? they have had diarrhea now for the past 4 days. it doesnt seem to be getting better.
i dont know what to do
 

sharky

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except in the one with breathing issues ... redo the mix over .... this time for a month ... If that still doesnt fix the problem then try another food or add some pumpkin to the diet...

Solid Gold is a good food yet very rich

I would try pumpkin or bene bac( this is a probiotic supplement at the pet store)

Welcome to TCS
 
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beemo

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ok i will get another iams bag today and start re-mixing.
should i do a 50/50 ratio??

what is pumpkin? yeah i know the squash
but what form does it come in for cats?? where can i buy it? is it an anti diarrheal??
 

sharky

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get plain pumpkin in the baking isle ... make sure it is plain... it actually works for both dirrea and constipation
 

jenny82

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I agree with everything Sharky has said!


Solid Gold is a much better food than Iams. I am glad some of their problems have improved on it.
 
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beemo

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oh ok, so the canned pumkin??

do i mix a little in their food, like a tsp or something? i dont think i can get them to eat it from a spoon
 

moggiegirl

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I tend to think the proof is in the cat and not all cats are going to do well on every type of food. If Solid Gold continues to cause diarrhea you might switch back to Iams until you find a food that doesn't cause these problems. And if all your cats are getting diarrhea from Solid Gold, I'd make a note of it. Could be a recall issue, not necessarily but I'd be cautious. California Natural or Nutro are also good choices. Or if Iams is working for your cats better than any other cat food there is nothing wrong with sticking to it IMHO.
 

sharky

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Originally Posted by beemo

oh ok, so the canned pumkin??

do i mix a little in their food, like a tsp or something? i dont think i can get them to eat it from a spoon
YUP and Yup///
Originally Posted by moggiegirl

I tend to think the proof is in the cat and not all cats are going to do well on every type of food. If Solid Gold continues to cause diarrhea you might switch back to Iams until you find a food that doesn't cause these problems. And if all your cats are getting diarrhea from Solid Gold, I'd make a note of it. Could be a recall issue, not necessarily but I'd be cautious. California Natural or Nutro are also good choices. Or if Iams is working for your cats better than any other cat food there is nothing wrong with sticking to it IMHO.
Exactly.. give the pumkin a whirl but if not try something simplier ... I wouldnt want them on iams IMHO but it works best then
 

kitytize

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Originally Posted by moggiegirl

I tend to think the proof is in the cat and not all cats are going to do well on every type of food.Or if Iams is working for your cats better than any other cat food there is nothing wrong with sticking to it IMHO.
I agree with this 100%.
 
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beemo

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normally id drop any diarrhea causing food but because it has cured stephens breathing problems im gonna give it a little longer.
im not familiar with foods and brands, so there must be something in iams that caused a severe allergy in my stephen.
what ever solid gold is made of its lacking in that allergy ingredient.
any clue whats in iams that causes allergies? what other brands should i try for stephen if solid gold doesnt work out?

if one cat is on a certain food it has to be for all five. i free choice dry, and i really cant choose which cat eats and which cat doesnt
 

moggiegirl

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I reccommend switching all of your cats to an allergy diet gradually to avoid diarrhea problems. You can try California Natural Chicken and brown Rice as long as your cat is not allergic to chicken. It is only made with a select few ingredients and is a very high quality food from Natura. www.naturapet.com or talk to your vet about how to obtain a diet with a protein source and carb source your cats have never had before such as duck and potato or rabbit and pea. These foods are designed to eliminate the allergen source. In addition definitely take your kitty to the vet to determine what may be causing the breathing problem and find out if it's really food related. Maybe this medical condition is not related to a food allergy at all. Diarrhea can be related to inflammatory bowel disease although with all of your cats getting diarrhea from Solid Gold I wouldn't suspect that. However I'm not a vet so I don't know.

The nicest thing about allergy diets is that they can be fed to healthy cats as well. You're simply feeding a different source of food and because the ingredient list is simple you avoid a lot of crappy ingredients. There used to be a good dry food from Natural Balance called Venizon and Pea and it was available at Petco but sadly it was recalled. Many vets carry the IVD diets which are made by Royal Canin. They come in Rabbit and Pea, Duck and Pea, and Venizon and Pea. You can also search on line.
 

sharky

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i would say eliminate the common allergens

WHeat

SOY

Fish

less likely

corn

chicken

potato

peas

barley

rice
 

winterrosefairy

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All 3 of my cats were on SOlid Gold dry. They were all gaining weight, which was good and their coats were looking great. But, the Solid Gold gave all of them diarreah. I decided to switch them to an all wet grain-free diet. I switched to By Nature organics cans. YOu wouldn't believe the difference! All their stool was firm! I'm soooo happy with the results. Solid GOld dry is way too grainy and rich for my cats.
 
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beemo

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Originally Posted by winterrosefairy

All 3 of my cats were on SOlid Gold dry. They were all gaining weight, which was good and their coats were looking great. But, the Solid Gold gave all of them diarreah. I decided to switch them to an all wet grain-free diet. I switched to By Nature organics cans. YOu wouldn't believe the difference! All their stool was firm! I'm soooo happy with the results. Solid GOld dry is way too grainy and rich for my cats.
i added 50/50 solid gold and iams last night. this morning in the box was one whole solid poop, i dont know who the lucky cat was
but its better than waking up to all liquid, not only in the box but smeared all over my floors


i thought about canned, but it seems like it was all canned food that was recalled, no?
ive never fed them canned before. five cats must mean alot of cans per week

after one night of the 50/50 mix stephen is still breathing normally. not sure how long it will take for the iams to mess him up again...
iams was chicken based, maybe he is allergic to chicken, it will take a little while to find out what he was allergic too.
when i got him from the breeder he was on royal canon dry (i believe it was kitten food) i kept him on it for a few months then switched him over to iams kitten because royal canon was hard to find at the time.
come to think of it, he never had the breathing problem when i first had him

maybe going back to royal canon is the answer??? i'll google the ingredients and see if it was recalled also (the dry not wet)
 

merlynn's mom

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That is strange that ALL of them have diarrhea. hmmm.

A similar story, but I only had one cat at the time.

I switched her gradually over to Innova dry from Science Diet. She was okay until a few days after she was solely on Innova. The vet couldn't figure it out...

I bought Cal Natural and as soon as I had 50/50 in the bowl, there was solid stool. So it's definitely the food.

GOOD LUCK! It's so wonderful to find hard poop in the box, no? hahahaa.
 
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beemo

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Originally Posted by merlynn's mom

GOOD LUCK! It's so wonderful to find hard poop in the box, no? hahahaa.
yeah lol
especially with persians. a few of them got impacted from the ordeal, so i had to run their butts under the faucet and give them a frankenstein clip in the rear


their all getting shaved thursday (except the dsh)
gee i hope they dont think they are being punished



i did try solid gold at the same time for my pekingese. i got him wee lil bit small dry which he wouldnt touch no matter what i added to it.
so then i tried solid gold green can, he didnt like it too much but then he got used to it. and again the same thing happend to him like with the cats, he was fine while he was acclimating but when it was 100% solid gold he let loose.
i took him off of solid gold completely a few days ago and hes back on his old food, which i cant stand because its one of the cheapest foods around, hes on moist n' meaty w/ lamb and rice! blagh

hes sooooo fussy, but i think he might get the runs from all canned food. dry he wont touch..oh these fussy pets!!
 

momto3cats

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I am wondering about one thing in your original post; you say the cats have been eating only Solid Gold for 10 days, but that the upset tummies started 4 days ago. Are you sure it's the food causing this? Diarrhea from a new food usually starts right away. It might be a good idea to take a stool sample in to the vet just in case they actually have a parasite or bacterial problem.
 
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beemo

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Originally Posted by momto3cats

I am wondering about one thing in your original post; you say the cats have been eating only Solid Gold for 10 days, but that the upset tummies started 4 days ago. Are you sure it's the food causing this? Diarrhea from a new food usually starts right away. It might be a good idea to take a stool sample in to the vet just in case they actually have a parasite or bacterial problem.
hmm i probably didnt explain it properly. total days since i started solid gold from day one is approx. one month
they have been on pure solid gold for around 10 days now...or now 12 or so

the diarhea started soon after they were on pure solid gold (no more iams in the mix)

i called my mom last night, she was the one who recommended solid gold because her dog has colitis and is on solid golds bark at the moon dry and has been doing great on it.
she said her dog doesnt really get that much solid gold, hes on only a few handfulls a day mixed in with very dark toast (hes a 90lb pit rotti mix) the vet told her dont give him too much solid gold because its very rich and to add toast to combat diarhea.
she didnt mention this to me before...or i may have drifted a lil when she was telling me lol
so far with the iams mixed in they havent had diarhea yet today, seems like their not going much at all now, maybe the iams has regulated them back..kinda quick tho huh? i will give it a few more days and see how they do.
maybe a 50/50 ratio will work...i gotta keep an eye on stephen though, the breathing problem kitty.
i know its the food, it would be just too much of a coincodence if they picked up bacteria the same time they were switched to an all solid gold diet, and the dog too
 

momto3cats

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Originally Posted by beemo

hmm i probably didnt explain it properly. total days since i started solid gold from day one is approx. one month
they have been on pure solid gold for around 10 days now...or now 12 or so

the diarhea started soon after they were on pure solid gold (no more iams in the mix)

i called my mom last night, she was the one who recommended solid gold because her dog has colitis and is on solid golds bark at the moon dry and has been doing great on it.
she said her dog doesnt really get that much solid gold, hes on only a few handfulls a day mixed in with very dark toast (hes a 90lb pit rotti mix) the vet told her dont give him too much solid gold because its very rich and to add toast to combat diarhea.
she didnt mention this to me before...or i may have drifted a lil when she was telling me lol
so far with the iams mixed in they havent had diarhea yet today, seems like their not going much at all now, maybe the iams has regulated them back..kinda quick tho huh? i will give it a few more days and see how they do.
maybe a 50/50 ratio will work...i gotta keep an eye on stephen though, the breathing problem kitty.
i know its the food, it would be just too much of a coincodence if they picked up bacteria the same time they were switched to an all solid gold diet, and the dog too
Ah, OK. It sounds like the mix of both foods is working for now, that's good.
 
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