The Wet Food Blues

Hi,

I've been trying to transition my kitties from an all-kibble diet to one that includes at least 1 wet meal per day. Eventually, I'd like to get to feeding canned twice (out of 3 meals) per day, but I want to take the transition slowly. Unfortunately, I've had a couple of false starts so far. Each time I feed them 1 wet meal 3 or more days in a row and begin to feel that my kitties are adapting, I suffer a setback.

The first time, Tiny developed diarrhea. It was pretty bad, so I backed off and returned to the kibble for a couple of days.

Now I'm trying the wet again. The first day seemed to go great, but last night Tiny threw up what she ate. I thought she had probably just eaten too much too quickly and made herself sick, so when I fed them tonight I just put down 1 can (split between 4 cats) thinking I would wait another hour or so before putting down another so Tiny couldn't gorge. She got sick again anyway, so I think it must just be the food. I'm not 100% sure what I fed her last night, but tonight I know it was the Authority Beef Formula. Here are the ingredients:

Beef Formula
Ingredients: Beef Broth, Animal Liver, Beef, Chicken, Ocean Fish, Brewers Rice, Egg
product, Guar Gum, Potassium Chloride, Salt, Brewers Dried Yeast, Choline Chloride,
Vitamins(Vitamin E, A, D3, B12 Supplements, Thiamine Mononitrate, Niacin, dCalcium
Pantothenate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin Supplement, Folic Acid,
Biotin), Minerals (Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Copper Proteinate, Manganous Sulfate,
Potassium Iodide, Sodium Selenite), Taurine.

Guaranteed Analysis: Crude Protein (min) 10.0%, Crude Fat (min) 6.5%, Crude Fiber
(max) 0.8%, Moisture (max) 78.0%, Ash (max) 1.9%, Magnesium (max) 0.025%,
Taurine (min) 0.07%, Omega-6 Fatty Acids* (min) 0.85%, Omega-3 Fatty Acids* (min)
0.15%.

It's a shame really because the Authority seemed like a pretty decent and relatively inexpensive brand. Does it seem likely that something in this can is disagreeing with her? I have some Blue Buffalo as well, but Promise and Tre don't seem overly thrilled about that brand (even though they demolished it when I bought the first 'test' can). Does anyone have suggestions for ingredients I might want to avoid or brands that would be safer for a kitty with (apparently) a sensitive stomach?

try something with a named liver and no fish

Originally Posted by sharky

try something with a named liver and no fish

Click to expand...

Authority's Lamb & Rice formula doesn't have fish - it does have a named liver, but it also has a 'generic' liver...

Lamb & Rice Formula
Ingredients: Lamb Broth, Lamb, Animal Liver, Chicken Liver, Chicken, Egg Products, Brewers Rice, Guar Gum, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Taurine, Brewers Dried Yeast, Choline Chloride, Vitamins (Vitamin E, A, D3, B12 Supplements, Thiamine Mononitrate, Niacin, d-Calcium Pantothenate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin Supplement, Folic Acid, Biotin), Minerals (Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Copper Proteinate, Manganous Sulfate, Potassium Iodide, Sodium Selenite).

Guaranteed Analysis: Crude Protein (min) 10.0%, Crude Fat (min) 6.5%, Crude Fiber
(max) 0.8%, Moisture (max) 78.0%, Ash (max) 1.9%, Magnesium (max) 0.025%,
Taurine

Click to expand...

Okay, I'm trying the Blue Buffalo tonight. I have it on hand and it seems to meet the 2 requirements:

Tender Turkey & Chicken Entree

# Ingredients: Turkey, Chicken Broth, Chicken, Chicken Liver, Carrots, Sweet Potatoes, Whole Ground Brown Rice, Broccoli, Guar Gum, Potassium Chloride, Choline Chloride, Salt, Flaxseed, Cranberries, Blueberries, Taurine, Carrageenan, Cassia Gum, Vitamins [Vitamin A Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate (Vitamin B1), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Niacin (Vitamin B3), Calcium Pantothenate (Vitamin B5), Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Biotin (Vitamin B7), Folic Acid (Vitamin B9), Vitamin B12 Supplement, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Vitamin E Supplement], Minerals [Zinc Amino Acid Complex (source of Chelated Zinc), Iron Amino Acid Complex (source of Chelated Iron), Copper Amino Acid Complex (source of Chelated Copper), Manganese Amino Acid Complex (source of Chelated Manganese), Sodium Selenite, Calcium Iodate].

# Guaranteed Analysis: Crude protein (min) 10%, crude fat (min) 6.5%, crude fiber (max) 1%, moisture (max) 78%, ash (max) 2.1%

Click to expand...

There's some stuff in there I'm not wild about, but it doesn't seem too terrible overall.

It's not very popular with my other 3 kitties unfortunately but Tiny seems to like it. Actually, she's the Feline version of Mikey - she'll eat anything. If this can doesn't end up coming back up, I'll probably feed Tiny half a can of it in a separate room while the other 3 split a can of Authority (which they seem to like better). Then once they finish, I'll let Tiny out and put the other half of the BlueBuf down for them to finish up.

Well, I seem to be making some progress. I've fed canned 3 nights in a row and no signs of vomiting or diarrhea. The Blue Buffalo seems not to upset Tiny's digestive system. I also went out and bought a few more brands last night. Even though the pet store I went to was ~ 1/4 the size of the PetSmart, it seemed like it had more high quality canned food. Last night I fed some "Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul" and it seemed to be a big hit with everyone. I also picked up a can of Wellness Core, Felidae, Nutro MaxCat, and a can of Friskies. I picked up the Friskies because it is a urinary tract formula. Looking at the ingredients and the guaranteed analysis, it actually seems to stack up pretty favorably to the prescription Hill's c/d (for Thufir) in a can. And the Friskies costs about 1/4 what the c/d does.

Now that I'm getting these guys to eat wet food fairly consistently, I need to start looking at portions. Initially, I'd like to feed them dry in the morning (put out until they walk away and then taken up) and wet at night. I have four cats, whose weights are as follows:


Code:
Going by the ideal weights, 1 oz per lb. of cat per day would come to 35 oz. total, or ~6.5 5.5 oz. cans. Since I'm only feeding wet at night, I've been putting down 3 cans and that amount seems to be about enough to satisfy the kitties. Does that seem like a reasonable amount?

I'm also going to pick up a good quality pet scale so that I can keep track of the weights and make sure nobody is losing weight too fast or gaining. The bathroom scale might be OK to keep track on a long term basis, but not for week to week tracking.