Blue Buffalo and crystals?

nikita1

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Hello 

I have two siamese cats male 51/2 yrs and female 3 yrs. I changed their diet to BLU about a year ago after speaking with a sales person for the product at a pets store. I thought i was doing the right thing considering the health benefit from all natural ingredient.

Well my male cat developed severe urinary blockage not crystals  but urinary tract disease. He almost died was in the hospital for 3 nights 4 days.

He was upon release put on a prescription diet food and no problems since.  My vet said you rarely see this in female cats but he did say to check with your vet if changing food so they can look at the ingredients. 

It does seem odd to me that for 4 years my male did great with science diet then I changed his food..
 

nikita1

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An addition to this thread i recommended Blu cat food to my daughter with two cats. Her male cat 7 yrs developed a blockage and was overnight int the hospital. Her female cat seems fine.

Her vet put the cat on prescription food so far doing fine.  Sent a letter to Blu Buffalo but we'll see what other people have to say
 

grozni

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My 2 year old cat had an urinary blockage. And I do suspect of Blue Buffalo as well. I start using this food a year ago because one of my cats is very sensitive to grains and had diarreah for a long period of time and even the vet was clueless about what was going on with the cat. I switch him to Blue Buffalo Basics and it worked like magic, the diarreah stopped. I was very thankful at the food brand. Since it seem like a good food for every cat I started giving it to my other two cats. Well, well now my other male cat has de developed crystals and painful urine blockage. I was reading one of the ingredients that causes crystals and stones in cats is Magnesium. Blue Buffalo Basics contain 0.08% while the crappy but useful Royal Canin contains 0.05% and the DL- methionine which adds acidity to cat's pee. I would love to continue using a holistic real food and not the crappy royal canin full of fillers and grains but I can't find one that is holistic but low in Magnesium and that contains something to afd acidity to their pee to prevent crystals and stones in the bladder
 

raintyger

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My 2 year old cat had an urinary blockage. And I do suspect of Blue Buffalo as well. I start using this food a year ago because one of my cats is very sensitive to grains and had diarreah for a long period of time and even the vet was clueless about what was going on with the cat. I switch him to Blue Buffalo Basics and it worked like magic, the diarreah stopped. I was very thankful at the food brand. Since it seem like a good food for every cat I started giving it to my other two cats. Well, well now my other male cat has de developed crystals and painful urine blockage. I was reading one of the ingredients that causes crystals and stones in cats is Magnesium. Blue Buffalo Basics contain 0.08% while the crappy but useful Royal Canin contains 0.05% and the DL- methionine which adds acidity to cat's pee. I would love to continue using a holistic real food and not the crappy royal canin full of fillers and grains but I can't find one that is holistic but low in Magnesium and that contains something to afd acidity to their pee to prevent crystals and stones in the bladder
Newer theories say that magnesium isn't as much as concern as once thought. What is more important is that kitty is hydrated, so that means WET food. Meat has methionine in it, so the higher the animal protein content of your food, the more likely your kitty's urine pH will be in an appropriate range. If you are concerned about magnesium, non-fish flavors of Weruva and Fussie Cat are good.
 

bastlover

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Blue Buffalo will not release (at least when I tried) info on the actual mag. cone tent...I believe the number you gave is an minimum or average which keeps the max a mystery? Anyway, don't use Wellness either...my cat got  crystals almost immediately on that food too..I avoid Blue because when I called them they were not forthcoming with their analysis info.  I switched to Acana for dry...it's expensive but very high quality and low mag and CA. However, if you have a male cat prone to crystals , the best diet is wet food...some cats with this problem can never eat dry food. My male cat now eats mostly wet and gets a small amount of Acana dry as well. he has been doing well for over a year now with no repeat crystals.
 

gummifuzz

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Any dry food can trigger UTI issues. I've heard reports of practically ALL dry foods doing this - not just Blue, not just Wellness, etc. Feed wet-only or majority wet food if you want to avoid crystals, stones, or whatever. I have 7 cats. All eat Blue dry and Friskies wet. One got crystals. The others didn't and this was years ago. And the other six STILL don't.

It was probably genetics on part of that one cat, and likely why we found him in a shelter in the first place because people don't understand how crappy diets can affect health.
 

bronte

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YES!!!  Stay away from Blue Buffalo and Blue Wilderness!

Bladder stones galore.

I switched to Royal Canon digestive and my poor kitty has been fine ever since.  Thank goodness we caught them early (by pure chance) and were able to reverse some of the damage before we had to have them surgically removed.
 
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3catsandabird

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Baxter, aka Mr. Black, has been blocked twice.

After the first time, after much research, I switched the cats over to Innova. Innova has DL Methionine and has worked great.

He got the crystals the second time after I switched them to Wellness in an effort to save a few bucks.

Now, years later, they are still eating Innova, but I have switched them to an all wet food diet. They are slowly dropping their

excess weight, getting back some of their energy, and raising heck again. It's a blast to watch 3 10 year old plus cats raising heck!

Sending positive vibes in your direction.
 

goingpostal

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Not sure if it's got a connection but I have ferrets and there's been a huge increase in ferrets with struvite bladder stones recently that have been linked to grain free kibbles with high amounts of pea protein.   I wonder if something similar is happening here? 
 

drunkencherry

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We have 2 cats, both with bladder crystals. Both never had Blue Buffalo, not dry, nor wet food.

We got our persian cat, Felix,  from a friend of mine, he was the last one in the litter, and all the cats in my friend's household (7 at that time) were fed real food - meat, poultry, fish. So I had to continue feeding my new kitten what he was used to. At the age of 6 months he got into a hospital with crystal blockage. 3 weeks of hospitals, tests, etc., and 6K later my local vet prescribed RC urinary SO in hopes it helps to avoid a surgery. So it did. Felix is 8 yo now, though he's very small and everyone thinks he's still a kitten, and he hates being pet (childhood memories of being poked with needles and catheters, shavings, etc.)

The other cat is an 18-lb american tabby Orange. He is the sweetest cat on Earth! I adopted him from my local vet while treating Felix. This humongous orange furball of sweetness was left with my vet for euthanization by his owner due to not being able to cover the cost of needed surgery to widen his urinary channels to let the crystals flow out. I would never understand how can anyone do such thing, neither could my vet; he performed the surgery and was looking for appropriate new owners for Orange. As far as I know, previous owner fed Orange with some generic brand cat food.

Currently both of my cats are on prescription diets - Felix is still on canned RC urinary SO, Orange had developed some kind of allergy and is on Hill's i/d sensitive stomach dry and wet food. In addition to i/d food, Orange has a life-long prescription of prednisone, which I've stopped giving him in fear of side effects. 

I feel like I need to make changes in my cats diets. My tabby is vomiting up to several times a week, so after re-reading i/d ingredients and talking to Petco workers, I got him BB Wilderness duck dry food and will try to take him off of his prescribed food since it doesn't seem to work for him. As for Felix, I would love to replace his food, too, even though it's been working for him. 
 

xcourtney3

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Is everyone talking about the BB dry or wet? I've been wanting to try the spa selects wet to rotate with Friskies but my male has a history of stress induced cystitis and I don't want to push it..
 

catlover58

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I use blue buffalo dry for my cats and i have alot of males and was wondering blue seems to have good ingredients so how could it cause uti's?? I don't want my cats to get that!!
 

catlover58

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I am feeding them the dry food and was thinking of switching to canned blue but I need some canned cat food that is low in ph and low in mag?
 

kittykisser

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How frustrating! Raya just got diagnosed with a UTI and high pH. I changed her from Taste of the Wild to Blue Buffalo Wilderness, and her recheck showed improved for the UTI but now crystals have formed and the pH did not go down. I thought Blue Buffalo was supposed to be good. Looking for ideas on what to feed. Vet suggests Purina UR, or something like that. Expensive and I hope temporary, but I don't know what else to feed her.
 
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marshmallow2013

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I had my cat on Purina ur dry when he got crystals last December but after the 6 lb bag was done, I switched him to Purina ur wet and Orijen Dry chicken. He became addicted to the Purina ur dry and stopped eating his wet food. I didn't like the ingredients in the ur dry. Now he gets a can a week of purina ur wet, which he doesn't care for much and PROPLAN chicken liver wet, plus natural balance turkey giblets wet. A litter bit of orijen dry kibble on top of his wet food. It's been 10 months, he's had no crystals.
Wellness wet and fancy feast seafood wet caused his crystals. Especially Wellness.
 

kittykisser

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I don't know how those prescription diets work, they are nothing but junk! I bought some wet Purina UR. Hope they like it.
 

kittykisser

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I had my cat on Purina ur dry when he got crystals last December but after the 6 lb bag was done, I switched him to Purina ur wet and Orijen Dry chicken. He became addicted to the Purina ur dry and stopped eating his wet food. I didn't like the ingredients in the ur dry. Now he gets a can a week of purina ur wet, which he doesn't care for much and PROPLAN chicken liver wet, plus natural balance turkey giblets wet. A litter bit of orijen dry kibble on top of his wet food. It's been 10 months, he's had no crystals.
Wellness wet and fancy feast seafood wet caused his crystals. Especially Wellness.
The wet food caused crystals????
 

marshmallow2013

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Yes, I bought Wellness grain free in can turkey and 3 weeks later he was sick. I read on some sites that wellness wet caused crystals in some cats. I was feeding Mittens nat. Balance turkey but wanted a lower carb/higher quality canned food and bought some wellness. 1 can a day and 3 weeks later he had crystals. Now I'm feeding him PROPLAN because he's really picky with wet food, and doesn't mind the chicken liver classic. Fancy feast chicken classic has fish but PROPLAN looks identical with no fish in the chicken classic. Purina ur wet is still in his diet, although he hates it, just to make sure the crystals don't come back.
 

abbyntim

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The wet food caused crystals????
My cat never had crystals on dry food (first Blue Buffalo Wilderness then Taste of the Wild Rocky Mountain formula). After we transitioned him to canned, primarily Wellness, he developed crystals. Once we stopped the varieties with fish (chicken/herring and turkey/salmon), the crystals went away. But he was having other food tolerance problems and we stopped Wellness entirely. He's been crystal-free since.
 
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raintyger

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I've read about Wellness and crystals as well. I had my kitty on Wellness when she had a struvite stone, but I think it was more because she was eating too much dry food. Once I fed 100% wet I didn't have any more problems. But I did find that the urine pH fluctuated a bit more while on Wellness.
 
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