Question about rotating food

carolina

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Hello -

I have had a lot of help in choosing Lucky's dry food, and thanks to you, I am pretty certain I have three excellent choices of top quality dry food, that I would like to rotate.
I am currently doing a very slow transition from Nutro to Orijen. After that I intend to transition to Wellness core, and then to Evo.

Here is my question:
For how long do you keep your cat on each food, before transitioning to the next? I know that even if done very slowly, a food change can still cause a little bit of stomach problems; I want to make sure I have the most benefits for Lucky from rotating food, and not only the problems...

Thanks!!!
 

goldenkitty45

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If you are gonna rotate dry foods, I would start by just making a mix of them and serving it rather then one/two weeks of one kind, and another a month later.

With canned foods, you can give a new one each day or every other day with no problems.
 

katgoddess

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I rotate canned/wet foods almost daily. As for dry, I rotate basically whenever the bag is running low. I just slowly mix in some of the new stuff and increasing it more and more for the next few days. Never had a problem with it and Tofu is so used to food changes.

I know some people do a mix of a few different brands and that could work, too, but I like to actually rotate so their body can get a "break". I know that food allergies are more likely to develop if they're fed the same protein/food for a long duration of time without change, so I make sure to mix around not only brands, but protein type as well.

Here's what I found while doing research for my dog's diet.

Variety is important no matter what type of diet you feed. Even if you use commercial foods, it is best to find at least two or three different brands, using different protein sources, and rotate between them, anywhere from daily to every few months.

Also, even “complete and balanced” diets may contain quite different levels of nutrients. If you always feed the same food, any nutritional deficiencies or excesses present in that food will affect your dog over time. The same is true if you feed different varieties made by the same company, since they tend to use the same vitamin/mineral formulations in all of their foods.

Your dog is also more likely to develop food allergies if fed the same food all the time. It takes time for an allergy to develop, typically months to years. Dogs that are fed the same food for extended periods of time will often develop allergies to one or more of the ingredients in that food. Variety is particularly important for puppies, since puppyhood is when the immune system learns which foods are normal and not a cause for reaction.

The only restriction to consider in terms of feeding lots of variety is to reserve at least some of the exotic proteins in case a novel protein is needed to test for or treat food allergies. There’s no need to feed venison, duck, rabbit, ostrich, buffalo, kangaroo and beaver to your dog. Save some of them in case they are needed in the future.

Source: http://www.dogaware.com/wdjhomemade1.html
 

snake_lady

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Good question.

What I plan on doing, is not rotating persay, but buying 2 types of food ( a really good food, and a not as good food) and mixing them together. Helps with the cost factor, as well as the variety. It would be a 50/50 mix.
 

sharky

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Originally Posted by KatGoddess

I rotate canned/wet foods almost daily. As for dry, I rotate basically whenever the bag is running low. I just slowly mix in some of the new stuff and increasing it more and more for the next few days. Never had a problem with it and Tofu is so used to food changes.

I know some people do a mix of a few different brands and that could work, too, but I like to actually rotate so their body can get a "break". I know that food allergies are more likely to develop if they're fed the same protein/food for a long duration of time without change, so I make sure to mix around not only brands, but protein type as well.

Here's what I found while doing research for my dog's diet.
minus the tofu .. SOY is a huge allergen to both cats and dogs ( among other issues )
 
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