Good, CHEAP wet foods for UTI?

Hey folks,

I'm yet again looking for some good and cheap wet foods for my UTI kitty....
He is on Sci Diet Rx CD dry, but I have the feeling that I need to be giving him wet food more regularly in addition to it. The vet tech (yesterday) told me that they carry the CD wet, but with the high cost of the dry, I can only imagine what the wet would cost...

So far, none of the high Q wets that I have fed him are suitable for UTI (not that he really cares for any of the EVO 95% meat or the cal. natural)... So far, I've been giving him (and the other cats) some authority cans every 2 - 3 days... They are reasonable at ~62 cents ea. plus tax. But, there aren't that many flavors that he likes. He also doesn't like any of the "cuts with gravy" consistency cans...mainly just eats the "loaf" types. I haven't tried him on the "shredded" types yet.

I was wondering if anyone else with a UTI / FLUTD cat could rec. some of the cheaper cans that have worked for you? i.e. friskies, 9 lives, or fancy feast, etc. I would like to avoid any fish, but I'm willing to accept some by-products, as I will be mixing them with the authority cans (which has no by-products).

If you could rec. any brands and specific flavors that would be great

Thanks!
Art

I'm curious, how have you come to the conclusion that none of the high quality wets you have tried aren't suitable to prevent FLUTD? Is it just the ones with grains that you don't think are suitable? Any grain free wet would be OK, right?

Friskies makes a certified diet in wet

MOST wet foods are suitable for UTI health some have been certified like the drys ... SO FAR no GRAIN frees are certified one tried but evidently did not complete or finish the testing ... I do remember by the % ages many were fine that were grain free ...

DO you have a can of C/D ?? if you did I would say take the label shopping with you


UM I wont say on ingredients but here is the friskies
http://friskies.com/Wet-Cat-Food/Spe...e/Default.aspx

http://friskies.com/Wet-Cat-Food/Spe...e/Default.aspx

I would not use anything with fish. Coco gets the C/D cans and the Royal Canin Urinary Cans. They cost about 1.35 a can. I would not use those other brands. All Coco has to eat is 1 teaspoon of those Brands and she gets Crystals.

Art I'm not trying to muddy the water because your situation may be different. My DBF's cat had chronic urinary tract crystals. The first time he got it the vet put him on C/D. He died approximately 6 months later. I don't know about prescription Science Diet but I know that the non prescription store sold stuff is not good.

I am not trying to say the food caused his death because I don't know that. I'm just saying if you're going to spend a lot of money on a prescription food that may not necessarily help, you might as well spend it on a high quality more naturally made food.

I hope you figure out what's best!

Pro Plan also sells a Urinary Health canned that is now available in 5.5 oz cans. Back when I bought it you could only get the little cans. And Pro Plan goes on sale regularly.

Edit:
Don't bother with the c/d canned. My cats wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole when we tried it. And it cost a lot! $$$$$

Back when I fed dry c/d, I fed canned Pro Plan Urinary Health and canned Nutro to supplement. My cats also chubbed out on c/d. So watch that too.

Whatever you decide on- i would recommend doing your research but also considering staying away from seafood products in your cats food. Diets with seafood in it ALWAYS triggered my Jasmine's symptoms and cause a lot of problems for her. We wound up doing Nutro Max Gourmet Classics Roasted Chicken (dry ) and that seemed to really help her the most so we stuck with it (we did try numerous wets and drys with her but she did the best on that one so that's what she eats). There are plenty of good wets out there though (my other kitties get Wellness & Mew Mix Market Selects -but they don't have UTI problems)

I've found the Pro Plan prescription diet and the Hills Prescription Diet C/D to be good for UTI problems too.

I don't know why everyone insists on feeding an acidifier diet of expensive rx food that the cats won't eat when you can use carpon. I have posted it so many times, and for the most part, I think it is ignored. I don't have an interest in the company, although I should as much as I recommend it. Why am I the only one that sees the positives of this product? It is like a miracle as far as I'm concerned. Yes, you have to pay for it, and it is not especially cheap, but it is far less expensive than spending an arm and a leg for food your cat hates to eat.
Am I the crazy one?
http://www.belfield.com/carpon.php

Originally Posted by gailuvscats

I don't know why everyone insists on feeding an acidifier diet of expensive rx food that the cats won't eat when you can use carpon. I have posted it so many times, and for the most part, I think it is ignored. I don't have an interest in the company, although I should as much as I recommend it. Why am I the only one that sees the positives of this product?

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Because I found foods my cats would eat and did ok on. If they had not, I was all set to move on to raw or using acidifiers with regular foods. I no longer use prescription food. Since moving to a mostly wet diet, my cats don't have issues. And I truly believe Stimpy's blockage (upon arrival at the shelter he was blocked) was due to poor diet, his coat was horrible at the time, too.

mschauer & Sharky- I should have been more specific, my area has limited (very) availability of good quality foods.... That said, the good quality wets that I have (EVO 95% beef and chicken/turkey and Cal. natural, as well as some NB vennison/pea for my allergy cat) seemed to have high ash content and mineral content...I can't get him to eat the cal. natural, so it would either be the EVO or the NB cans... OR the authority cans which I can get...these are the only ones that had low enough ash and magnesium (unless I am wrong)... The authority cans have ash: 1.9% and magnesium: 0.025%. Can't quote the EVO % right now and I no longer have any NB cans to look at.

If pretty much all wets are ok (even with higher ash/magnesium levels than those listed above) then I can broaden my range of foods basically to any that don't include fish, right?

I have access to most cheap / store brands locally but only NB, authority and nutro that are higher-end...No local wellness or natura or canadai dealers, so I'd have to mail order, plus for some odd reason, my cat doesn't like wellness or cal. natural

greenvillegal- I was feeding him EVO dry before and thought that the high ash/mag/phos could have contributed to his condition, so decided to do as the vet said with plans to eventually move to nutro max cat...

littleraven- thanks, I'll look for the proplan, although the last cans of proplan he didn't like (had weird green bits in them)..

starryeyedtiger- yes, been trying to avoid fish since one of my cats started having allergy symptoms...It is hard to find a cheaper canned food without fish in it.

gailuvscats- That's the thing, when the vet checked his urin ph (twice) his ph was perfect...like right at 6.0.... So no ph issues, so I figured it had to be the higher concentration of ash/mag/phos in his food plus maybe something in the water....which is why all the cats only get filtered water. I'm not sure how comfortable I'd be giving an acidifier if it could have bad side effects...I used a ph compound on one of my tanks (african cichlid setup) and the slightest bit more or less would drastically change the whole tank's ph...not sure what it'd do to the cat if I was "off" by just a little.

Thanks for your help and replies!
Art

Originally Posted by artgecko

gailuvscats- That's the thing, when the vet checked his urine ph (twice) his ph was perfect...like right at 6.0.... So no ph issues, so I figured it had to be the higher concentration of ash/mag/phos in his food plus maybe something in the water....which is why all the cats only get filtered water. I'm not sure how comfortable I'd be giving an acidifier if it could have bad side effects...I used a ph compound on one of my tanks (african cichlid setup) and the slightest bit more or less would drastically change the whole tank's ph...not sure what it'd do to the cat if I was "off" by just a little.

Thanks for your help and replies!


Art

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I found that my cats do not have a consistant PH. I check them myself. When Pansy first had problems, I checked his PH on the few drops I could get and it was ok, so I did not give him carpon. he got the antibiotic etc. Of course when the course of drugs was done, he started having issues again. This time when I checked his ph was around 8. So I did start him on the carpon, and fortunately we have no more issues. I gave him cosequin for a while and additional water. We seem to be ok now. I cannot check his ph often, because he won't pee around me, except when he had a problem. I check Fang consistently, and sometimes he is at 7.5. If he is back down the next check I leave him alone. he gets one carpon a day, as does Pansy. You are right not to over acidify, but it might do you good to check the ph yourself.

Coco eats her Royal Canin Urinary with no problems and C/D Dry. She sometimes will eat the C/D canned it depends. She is sick right now and I think the Meds took her tatse away. now that we switched Antibiotics she eats the food with no problem. The Vet did mention Pro Plan Urinary also.

The commercial foods offer UTI formulas. I had one vet recommend to use these, and another Vet did not recommend them because they acidify the blood as well as the urine. This was confusing to me, but I did not inquire further because I have no intention of using any UTI foods. Perhaps you might want to explore that further before starting on the commercial UTI food.

Originally Posted by gailuvscats

The commercial foods offer UTI formulas. I had one vet recommend to use these, and another Vet did not recommend them because they acidify the blood as well as the urine. This was confusing to me, but I did not inquire further because I have no intention of using any UTI foods. Perhaps you might want to explore that further before starting on the commercial UTI food.

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In regards to blood... A small variance in PH of blood KILLS thus I believe your vet was mistaken...

Originally Posted by artgecko

mschauer & Sharky-<..snip..>That said, the good quality wets that I have (EVO 95% beef and chicken/turkey and Cal. natural, as well as some NB vennison/pea for my allergy cat) seemed to have high ash content and mineral content...I can't get him to eat the cal. natural, so it would either be the EVO or the NB cans... OR the authority cans which I can get...these are the only ones that had low enough ash and magnesium (unless I am wrong)... The authority cans have ash: 1.9% and magnesium: 0.025%. Can't quote the EVO % right now and I no longer have any NB cans to look at.

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The EVO 95% chk&turk has ash 1.9% and magnesium 0.02%, the same as authority.
The 95% beef has ash 1.4% and mag .01%.

Originally Posted by sharky

In regards to blood... A small variance in PH of blood KILLS thus I believe your vet was mistaken...

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I may have misunderstood, I just let it go, didn't ask for an explanantion. Is there a significant difference in the commercial UTI products, and the premium rx kind, other than the quality and type of ingredients. I mean if the animal is already eating a cheaper quality food, and has UTI's will these be the solution?

Originally Posted by gailuvscats

Is there a significant difference in the commercial UTI products, and the premium rx kind, other than the quality and type of ingredients. I mean if the animal is already eating a cheaper quality food, and has UTI's will these be the solution?

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What are the "these" that you refer to?

I'm not sure there is any way of knowing what differences there are between the non-rx uti foods and the rx uti foods beyond what you can see on the labels. Apparently there are some criteria that a company has to satisfy before it can claim a food promotes urinary health but I have been unable to find out exactly what that criteria is. And I don't know if producers of both non-rx and rx foods follow the same criteria. That some vets seem comfortable recommending foods like the Pro Plan dry for urinary health leads me to believe that the non-rx and rx foods satisfy the same criteria but that's mostly a guess.

Originally Posted by mschauer

What are the "these" that you refer to?

I'm not sure there is any way of knowing what differences there are between the non-rx uti foods and the rx uti foods beyond what you can see on the labels. Apparently there are some criteria that a company has to satisfy before it can claim a food promotes urinary health but I have been unable to find out exactly what that criteria is. And I don't know if producers of both non-rx and rx foods follow the same criteria. That some vets seem comfortable recommending foods like the Pro Plan dry for urinary health leads me to believe that the non-rx and rx foods satisfy the same criteria but that's mostly a guess.

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I can't remember exactly, but I did see them on the shelf. I am pretty sure friskies has a special diet canned wet line that promotes urinary health, and I think the dry was purina one, maybe.

Originally Posted by gailuvscats

I can't remember exactly, but I did see them on the shelf. I am pretty sure friskies has a special diet canned wet line that promotes urinary health, and I think the dry was purina one, maybe.

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Oh, then by "these" you meant non-rx foods that supposedly promote urinary health. That is what wasn't clear to me.

It occurs to me, I haven't even asked my vet if the non-rx foods are as good as the rx ones. I assumed she wouldn't approve of one that wasn't an rx food but she does sell Pro Plan dry for urinary so maybe it would be worth asking.

I do not know the testing involved in RX formulas other than it is more intensive than any other food ... NON RX urinary certified s have been AFFCO tested plus in order to make the claim have to have 18-24 months of further testing via the FDA ... as that is a drug claim and makes the food a drug in essence///