Bengal kitten problems

i recently just purchased a bengal kitten i have had him for 2 weeks and his current age is 12 weeks. my questions is that he is having constipation problems and im not sure what to do. his current diet is purina kitten chow(dry) and sophista cat Kitten(wet) and since i took him from the breeders i have not changed his diet at all. what could be the cause of this???

i would start giving him canned pumpkin with his food- that helps constipation quite well. He is awfully young but he could also just be stressed out over the changes in his life. One typical reaction to stress is for a cat to block himself so if he doesn't go soon, I would take him to the vet.

just dropped my poor little kitty off at the vet and he has to get an enima since he was so backed up and has stay over night they gave me some laxatone and told me to put a 1/4 teaspoon of metamucil in his wet food

Boost: Hmm yeah good move bringing him to the vet, I hope it doesn't turn out to be anything too serious.
Was the Purina Cat Chow what the breeder was feeding him? If so, I must say I'm pretty surprised, it's not exactly the best food out there IMO, and good breeders normally know better then that.

After your kitty is all fixed maybe you could think about another diet for him, perhaps one that causes less waste?

Well then he is in the best possible hands! Good luck with him...

angelz- yes the cat chow was what she told me to feed him. i was thinking the same about that brand. what brand would you recomend for him. the vet told me we might have to switch him to nutro max and that might do him better.

Our 2nd cat was about 7 months old when we got him and he was constipated from the start. I just started feeding him more canned food, Wellness or Pet Guard, and he has been fine since then and smells better too!

If your cat continues to have these problems, you should think about a wet food diet, would be easier on them, at least until this problem is cleared up and then you could add in another diet, be it freeze dried, kibble or barf, that's up to you and your vet.

There are many good brands out there... In no particular order
Wellness
Wysong
Solid Gold
Natural Balance
Felidea
Evolve
Natures Variety
Nutro

There is sooo many more! And some of course are better then others, nutrition wise, but not every food will work the same for every cat.

Key factors for buying wet food.

1.) It's best to not buy foods that start with (Water sufficiant for processing.)
2.) The more meat products in the first 5 ingredients the better, and it should START with a meat.
3.) Real meat like Chicken or Lamb, are better then say Chicken by-product, or Meat Meal, etc.
4.) Unless your cat has a weight problem, look for a food with a good fat %, not too high. Wet food can be used to help a cat loose weight AND gain weight, depending on what you feed and how much.

I guess that's all I can think of right now.
If you see a food you like and think you want to get, feel free to ask us about it here and we'll give you any input on it that we can.

AngelzOO, I have a question for you. In your post above, you said:

Real meat like Chicken or Lamb, are better then say Chicken by-product, or Meat Meal, etc.

Click to expand...

I've always read that meat meal is actually better than meat. (ie. chicken meal vs. chicken) I read that because chicken meal is really just chicken with the water removed, if it's listed first on the list, you're getting more meat than if chicken is listed first. (Because chicken has a substantial amount of water in it, thus getting less meat if listed first.) I know that a lot of the better brands of cat food (Solid Gold, Felidae, Nutro, Royal Canin Indoor Formula) have meat meal listed first, and some others in the same category (Wysong, Wellness) have meat itself listed, followed by meat meal.

This is not to say you're wrong in the least. I'm just curious what is actually best to be feeding Spike and was hoping for more information if you had it. He's currently eating Nutro Natural Choice dry food, which I chose because of its ingrediants, the fact he seems to like the taste, and that it's sold at petstores here. (I had Felidae shipped in and he refused to eat it. ) Anyway, if you do have any information on the meat vs. meal thing, could you let me know please?

jgaruba: Your right, lol I'm sorry. I really have lost my mind now adays.
I should have known better then that, I just got done with a discussion with a ferret owner on the Eukanuba vrs Felidae food.
A good example of this for those who are looking on.

Eukanuba (Adult): Chicken, Chicken Liver, Chicken By-Product Meal, Brewers Rice, Chicken By-Products, Fish Meal (source of fish oil), Corn Grits, Chicken Fat...etc


Felidae: Chicken Meal, Turkey Meal, Brown Rice, Lamb Meal, Chicken Fat, ( preserved with mixed tocopherols and ascorbic acid ), Menhaden Fish Meal, Eggs, Flax Seed Meal... etc

Personally, Felidea is by far the better choice to me, it has all meal products which are better then real meat and by-products, plus it has no corn! And Eukanuba is an evil company anyways for reasons I can't list publicly! )

By-Products: I don't like them as much because they are really just the left overs from human grade foods, like heads, necks, guts, feathers, bones, beaks, and feet. They actually contain very little of the meat substances and are harder for your pet to digest, and thusly have very little to no nutritional value.

Chicken vrs. Chicken Meal: For every 5 pounds of raw (wet) chicken that gets cooked into petfood, you are really only left over with 1 pound of meat after the rendering process. As apposed to Chicken Meal which already has the fat and water removed, so when you start with 5 pounds, you still wind up with about 5 pounds after cooking.

However, pet food companies add their measurements on the labels by what they START with, not how much meat is actually left over after they cook it. So even if Chicken is first, it might not actually be the majority of the kibble after rendering, unlike Chicken Meal.

Also, you should check the labels to see if that brand uses human grade ingredients, that is a personal preference of mine.

Thanks AngelzOO... I was off and searching for a new food last night with my confusion of the meat vs meal thing. Thanks for clearing it up.