what do you all think about halo?

I put my cats on Innova EVO, but they don't seem to be taking well to it. One of them barely eats it, and the other...the rogue pooper...continuously diarrheas outside the litterbox (right next to it, regardless if it is clean or not) and this has only started since I've been feeding EVO, even after I transitioned them over to it. I am thinking the rogue pooper might be my roommate's cat, and he's always had a sensitive stomach, ever since he moved in. I don't know if it's behavior related or not, but my roommates are wanting me to switch their food to see if the rogue pooper will stop on another food.

RP did not have this problem when they were on natural balance alpha. I don't want to switch back to natural balance because one of mine got blocked on the LID green pea and duck.

What do you guys think about Halo? I've seen a great deal of cats take well to it, and they've got a formula that's just turkey since I'm trying to wean my fish addicts off fish.

Personally, I'm not too keen on halo. Too many vegetables. I have fed it to my crf cat only because I'm running out of options as to what to feed him (he is picky/spoiled?) I would choose wellness or nature's variety Instinct over halo. I think nature's variety has come out with limited ingredient formulas but it may just be for dogs.

May I ask why you chose halo?

Well, I had high hopes for EVO but only one of the three cats is taking to it, and we've got the rogue pooper and my roommate's cat barely eats any. I tried Natural Balance green pea and duck, but one of mine got blocked on it so I'm super paranoid. I've heard a great deal of stories about cats getting blocked on wellness so I haven't fed them that.

I also don't have a great deal of money so I'm always on a budget >.< The one thing I never skimp on is cat food (I'm lame like that...I'll eat ramen but the kitties, see, they are *kitties* and this is important) but...yeah. I work at a petco so I try foods there that I can get using ye olde employee discount.

I had a friend who was a doberman breeder (yeah totally out there, I know) but she raved about Halo for quite some time.

I can only speak for Halo dry kibble (Spot's stew chicken grain-free), never fed my cats the canned version. All 3 of my cats were on Halo grain-free kibble for about a year, started sometime spring of 2010. My friend also made the switch for her 2 cats at the same time. All of our cats appeared to be in great health. Prior to this, they ate Blue Buffalo Chicken indoor formula for years with no trouble.

Early this summer, 2 of my 3 cats were diagnosed with UTI. About a month after me, my friend's 2 cats also developed UTI. I highly suspect the grain-free dry to be the cause of the UTIs. My friend contacted Halo and was basically told that they had no other complaints and most likely the cat's lack of water and possible stress were to blame. Um, friend has a water fountain for the cats, and gives them canned food once a week.. So, I'd be VERY wary about switching to Halo. Perhaps the canned, but I'd stay FAR FAR away from the grain-free dry.

My 2 cents.

- Grace

Never tried the dry, but my cats wouldn't touch the canned. It had a lot of green vegetables and was really watery. Haven't got it since.

I won't use it because of the garlic.

Halo had too many veggies in it for my cat, he would eat around them.
I have heard that EVO can be 'too strong' for some cats and they just can't handle it, but I don't know if there is any validity in it.

I feed a mix of Before Grain, Innova, Authority and sometimes Wellness and Simply Nourish with no problems. You might want to try Innova because you can usually find the 13.2 oz cans for really cheap at pet stores, but it's a really good food.
(P.s. Innova & EVO are not the same thing.)

EVO can be a bit rich for some cats. However, I have read many threads by vets who recommend it to their clients to resolve diarrhea and IBD issues. This I was surprised at but apparently, these vets have had success with it. Maybe the higher amount of meat is more digestible and thus, it puts less stress on their digestive systems??? A guess on my part.

I've read lots of kitties have digestive issues on Evo kibble... can you switch to the canned? That will likely clear up your pooper's problems, with the added benefit of additional water intake (reducing the likelihood of urinary tract and dehydration issues) and the ability to rotate through several different varieties (reducing the chance either cat will get hooked on any one product and diluting the potential fall-out from quality control issues). A win-win-win.

Good luck!

AC

Thanks for everyone's replies!

Feeding the kitties in my house is always an adventure...three different kitties (my two and my roommate's one), and my roommate and I having weird schedules. There's James, my roommate's cat, who has been free-feeding for *years* and if he doesn't see food out, he freaks out and throws up in various places. He doesn't eat wet food, no matter how much I try. I get excited when he tries to lick some.

There's Marcus, one of mine, who does the same thing as James when he can't see food. We don't know James or Marcus' backgrounds...James was abandoned, Marcus given to me by my cousin, I'm his fourth home.

Marcus gets a can of wet food in the morning and at night. He'll eat anything I put in front of him but prefers shreds, liking Soulistic the best. James doesn't eat wet. Galen only eats tuna and small shreds and always leaves some on his plate. The dry food exists because of all this. We free-feed and I *hate* it but I don't really know what else we can do considering the way James and Marcus react.

tl;dr feeding is complicated in my apartment.

As of now we're using Blue Buffalo for the dry because I've heard good things about that. The Rogue Pooper seems to have stopped, knock on wood.

If you take away the food when James is not looking, do you know if he has the same reactions? I'm presuming here, but I can guess that he only panics when either A: he sees you remove the food B: he sees no food on the ground when you are present.

Why don't you start by removing the food when he's not around, and then avoid that area of the house for several hours, and then place down food later when he is around. If the food is in the kitchen or some other unavoidable area, then you could either start slowly moving the bowl to another area of the house or only pick up the food for one hour at a time and then progress to two hours, etc.