Switching my cats food?

Hi I have 3 cats two dlh and a siamese the long haired cats are 7 and 8 years and the siamese 2 years. For the past 3-4 years they have been on Natural Balance Ultra recently i have been noticing a lot more hairballs and puking after eating especially the siamese she gags all the time during meal time. My two older ones are getting dandruff pretty bad. Oh and they are staring to get a bit chunky except for the siamese. They all share a bowl throughout the day with 1 1/2 cups. So I'm looking into Wellness Indoor Health, Blue Indoor, Innova,Blue Wilderness. Any help would be appreciated.

A switch to canned food would likely address all the issues you listed. Natural Balance has several that are grain-free, as does Wellness, Nature's Variety Instinct, and Innova Evo 95% Meat. Go! Natural, Felidae, and many others have grain-free varieties as well.

Canned food, unlike kibble, can be rotated without causing digestive upsets. Rotating through several flavors and brands helps prevent fixation on a single food product (not a good thing if/when the formula of that product is changed) and also dilutes any potential quality control issues that might affect the cats' health (since each product becomes only a percentage of the cats' diet).

Good luck with your change! If you do decide to switch to canned, catinfo.org and feline-nutrition.org both have transition articles you might find helpful.

Best regards!

AC

Ditto what Auntie Crazy said

My cat Swanie has had problems recently from the Natural Balance Ultra. I switched them from California Natural to Natural Balance, and now I'm switching them back after I finish up the bag of Rx food I got from the vet. The Rx food did the trick, by the way, although I don't really want to feed it to him permanently (Royal Canin Gastrointenstinal forumla). Swanie is back to his normal self again . Good luck!

Originally Posted by daniels1229

Hi I have 3 cats two dlh and a siamese the long haired cats are 7 and 8 years and the siamese 2 years. For the past 3-4 years they have been on Natural Balance Ultra recently i have been noticing a lot more hairballs and puking after eating especially the siamese she gags all the time during meal time. My two older ones are getting dandruff pretty bad. Oh and they are staring to get a bit chunky except for the siamese. They all share a bowl throughout the day with 1 1/2 cups. So I'm looking into Wellness Indoor Health, Blue Indoor, Innova,Blue Wilderness. Any help would be appreciated.

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From the info provided it appears you free feed the kibble. I don't see a mention of feeding wet. It is possible your pet food company has altered the formula of your cat's kibble which may be causing some of these problems. Have the hair balls and the puking begun only recently? That also would point me to look for a formula change.

If you are going to stay with a kibble I would find the new kibble and transition the kitties over to the new kibble slowly by mixing the new kibble with the old kibble in graduation amounts.

I free feed my cats kibble and do a schedule for their wet. Even though I free feed the kibble there has been no noticeable weight change in my cats. In your case, you might want to go to a scheduled feeding routine with them, or, buy one of those feeding dispensers that you can set up to feed regularly throughout the day. Free feeding kibble is notorious for adding weight to kitties. They'll eat and eat and eat

My cats have done very well on a mix of Natural Choice and Nutro Max kibble.

Adding some wet to their diet, scheduling their feeding and perhaps changing their kibble will most likely help alleviate the problems you're having.

I'm a big fan of Blue Buffalo and Wellness. I find that my cat's experience no stomach problems interchanging between the two. Incorporating more wet food, it has all that great protein and moisture your cat needs, will help with the hairballs and dry skin. Our cats really like Blue's flaked dishes, flaked chicken, turkey, salmon, they run whenever we call them for meals.We also give them some kittymalt, half a teaspoon weekly to prevent hairballs, maybe it would be beneficially to give your cat's some weekly to help with the hairballs, our cats love the taste and their picky.